


The Unspoken Rule

by Grundy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 86,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreams

Buffy knew she was dreaming, but it didn’t feel like a Slayer dream. She was back in her room in Sunnydale for some odd reason, but the room wasn’t quite right. For one thing, she hadn’t been that into pink since she was little. For another, the closet was in the wrong place.

“I told you about that before, young lady,” said a familiar voice.

Buffy turned, expecting to see her mother, but it wasn’t Joyce. It was a woman she didn’t recognize. Her hair was red, a little darker than Willow’s, and she had a kind smile. Buffy felt like she should know her somehow, but she couldn’t place her. Whoever she was, she had the mom gig down pat. She gave her a disapproving look that sure felt familiar.

“I warned you that shoving everything in the closet and closing the door wouldn’t cut it,” she told Buffy. “You better do something about that before your father gets here. He’s been waiting so long to see you again.”

Buffy tried to open the closet, but the door was jammed shut so firmly that even Slayer strength didn’t budge it.

“I’d fix it, but the door’s stuck,” she told the woman. “Do you have a crowbar or something?”

“I’m sure there’s one in the basement,” the woman told her.

“Shannon?” called a voice from downstairs. “Kelly?”

Shannon shook her head.

“I’ll go speak to your father. This is so hard on him.”

“That’s Dad downstairs?” Buffy asked, confused. Hank had never been inside the Sunnydale house. He’d always waited outside for her when he picked her up, and watched her to the door from the car when he dropped her off. He wouldn’t just walk in.

Shannon turned toward the stairs.

“He’s going to be so disappointed, Kelly.”

There were footsteps on the stairs. Shannon looked worried.

“You’ll have to wait, she’s not ready yet, G-“

“Buffy?”

Dawn’s voice was usually welcome, but Buffy had a feeling that whatever had been about to happen was important. It didn’t feel like a Slayer dream, and yet…

“What’s the what, Buffy?” Dawn asked. “I was just coming to ask you if you wanted to see me off at the airport.”

“The airport?” Buffy asked, still confused as her mind continued to process what she’d just seen and heard. “Sorry, weird dream.”

“We’re not looking at another apocalypse, are we?” Dawn demanded.

“I don’t think so,” Buffy said. “It’s something more personal.”

“Right, personal, wanna ride with me to the airport? Remember, I’m going to set up the Council’s new DC house?”

For a split second, Buffy was on the tip of connecting the dots she knew were there but couldn’t quite see, but then it was gone again.

“Sure. Hey, if you run into anyone named Shannon while you’re there, let me know, ok?”


	2. Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Dawn tried not to make any noise as she came to. She knew from unpleasant experience that those few moments when your captor thought you were still out could be the difference between surviving your latest hostage situation or not. In fact, the next time she talked to Xander, they were going to figure out an official rule number for ‘it’s never better when you wake up’. It was item number two on her to do list.

Number one was getting out of this alive. No one could accuse her of not knowing how to prioritize. So much for DC being a quiet assignment…

What she could hear around her wasn’t of the good. She wasn’t the only one on the menu, from the moans coming from her two o’clock. Opening her eyes the merest fraction, she saw there was also a pile of former entrees at eleven. These vamps were not screwing around.

Not that she had thought they were. There had been one that she spotted. The other two had grabbed her before she’d realized they were there. It would have been awesome if her being made from Buffy had meant she got any of the spidey sense that warned her sister about the presence of vampires. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked out that way- thus her long record of ending up an involuntary guest.

On the bright side, she had lots of experience surviving kidnappings by vampires, demons, and in one memorable case, a deranged witch. That one had been interesting. She would never have expected balloon animals to be a viable weapon…

Sadly, this experience promised to be less fun. She was guessing there was no possibility of balloon animals, and all the vamps she had seen had been huge. Bigger than the average vamp, and something about the way they carried themselves made her suspect that they’d all been military before their deaths. Combat trained vamps was really not of the good.

Especially, Dawn realized, with a sinking feeling, when they were right in your face. She opened her eyes. So much for those extra few moments. Bastard knew she wasn’t unconscious anymore.

He was grinning.

“Enjoying the view, sweetness?”

His expression told her he was. Dawn tried not to make a face as she realized that he’d been looking down her shirt. She bit back frustration when she realized she was, for an unpleasant change, tied up fairly well. Usually her captors botched that part.

“Not really,” she told him in her best bored tone. “You do know this isn’t exactly low profile, right? They’re kind of big on law and order in these parts.”

“Look at me shaking,” the vamp retorted with a snicker. “Hate to break it to you, darling, but no one’s going to miss one little girl.”

Dawn didn’t even try to keep the ‘are you serious’ look off her face.

“Are you kidding me? On a Marine base? I think they just might.”

“You’re not a Marine, honey. Or related to one. And you don’t work here. No one’s going to notice you’re missing.”

Dawn raised an eyebrow even as she smirked inwardly. She begged to differ, but there was no reason to share just yet.

“And you know all that how?”

He grinned.

“I have my ways. Rental tags on your car, for a start.”

Dawn rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, cause no one on base ever has a car in the shop, or totals a car, or doesn’t feel like taking theirs on a long road trip, or-“

“Girlie, you don’t seem to understand your situation,” the vamp growled. “Here, let me give you a little demonstration… It was getting too quiet in here anyway.”

Dawn would normally have congratulated herself on getting under her captor’s skin, but this was not her usual hostage situation. There were bystanders. Her stomach sank as her would-be tormentor moved to her two o’clock. The expression on his face told Dawn whatever was coming would not be pleasant for anyone but him.

\---

Buffy frowned. She had been restless all day. Everyone else had chalked it up to her being all overprotective big sister, unhappy at having little sis out of her sight after dropping Dawn off at Heathrow this morning. She’d let them run with that, mostly because she wasn’t ready to try to explain the real reason to anyone else yet.

She blamed that dream. She was sure if she lay down and made herself sleep, she’d be right back in her room with the jammed closet again. She was halfway tempted to do it just to see if she could find out anything more. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was important. Normally she would have talked it through with Dawn, because her sister was uniquely qualified to help her figure out what had been going on there.

Sure, Dawn technically hadn’t grown up with her, but she had all the memories of growing up in the Summers family. She remembered Hank, occasionally with more clarity than Buffy did. Every once in a while, she’d toss out little details that would surprise everyone, like that Hank had actually hated football and only went to the games because clients expected it.

So Dawn might have been able to help her sister work out what was important about the closet, or the basement, or why Hank would suddenly want to see them again after years of not talking. Not showing up to his ex-wife’s funeral had been only the start- Buffy had needed his signature on some documents after her resurrection, part of making formal legal arrangements for Dawn. Just in case. So no one would have to hide her death a second time. They’d been unable to locate Hank. It was like he’d disappeared from the face of the earth.

That had been years ago, and they hadn’t heard a single word since. Buffy occasionally wondered what she’d done to make her father walk away from her like she was nothing, usually on her bad days. She knew the answer, of course. Joyce had eventually come around to accepting her daughter’s Calling, but Hank had never believed it in the first place. It was so much simpler for him to believe his daughter was just crazy. And crazy didn’t fit in his neat little world any more than Slayer did. Once she hit eighteen and was legally no longer his responsibility, he was gone for good.

It had been over ten years ago. Definitely long enough for her to get over it. She was a big girl now, after all. An adult. Role model, even. And if she was honest, the way the youngest girls looked at her scared her more than demons most days. The weight of their expectations was heavier than the weight of the world- especially because she refused to let them down. She wanted to show them that being a Slayer wasn’t a fast ticket to an early death. She was the longest lived Slayer on record, though Willow had pointed out the record had a few suspicious gaps that might have been Slayers who evaded the Council and lived a somewhat normal life.

She wondered if a normal life was even possible for people like them. She was pretty sure it wasn’t for her, Willow, and Xander. Too long in the trenches. Giles didn’t seem to mind, but then he’d had a normal life up until Sunnydale. Dawn barely even recalled what normal life was in her fake memories, although a Xander-shaped bird had told her that her baby sister might be trying for a normal relationship with a completely non-magical human male- albeit one who still had ties to the supernatural. In fact, that might have been a factor in her willingness to take on the DC assignment.

Buffy sighed. Even for Slayers, evading sleep forever wasn’t possible. They even had a rule about it, mostly to remind the newly called minis that no matter how invincible they felt, they weren't. Of course, rule 28 also got invoked to remind the older Slayers that running themselves ragged chasing the baddie of the moment would eventually catch up with them. Sooner or later she was going to have to face that closet door again...

Maybe this time she could get it to open.

\---

Gibbs looked around his house. In the wake of recent events, he’d ended up revisiting the past. That vision, or whatever it was, at the diner had showed him a lot of things. All the losses- his mother, his girls, Kate- but also all the gains- Abby, Ducky, Tony, Tim, Ziva and all that she’d done for him. Not just with Ari, but after that bomb had sent him back in time and he’d woken up to his loss all over again. After all that, he was looking at his life with new eyes.

Damn psychologist kid from that case last Christmas had been right. Shannon would never have let their home look like this. Without even realizing it, he’d let it get shabby. Threadworn. And that was on top of it definitely lacking a woman’s touch- or the touch of anyone who knew more about interior decorating than the average jarhead. It managed to look both unlived in and tired.

More than one of his ex-wives (and several of his ex-girlfriends) had complained that he wasn’t able to let go of the past. At the time he’d been unwilling to hear it, but they might have had a point. He’d kept the house just as it was. But as it was had been decades now. Even if that miracle he used to dream about happened and Kelly and Shannon walked back in the door today, they wouldn’t be happy with the results.  
Maybe it was time to make some changes.

He gazed at their picture as he cracked open a beer. Kelly would probably be more horrified than Shannon, now that he thought about it. Shannon would just sigh and reach for the nearest furniture catalogue while telling him this was not negotiable. He’d act gruff while she planned the shopping trip, but secretly he’d love every minute of it. Hell, he’d even take Shannon shoe shopping if it meant spending time with his girls.

Kelly, though... She’d always liked things pretty. His princess would wrinkle her nose and ask what he was thinking keeping the couch. And that would be before she sat on it. He could almost see it.

‘Daddy, seriously? It’s like something from a museum!’

Maybe it was time to let go. Maybe this time, letting go would work. Besides, who was he kidding? If miracles happened, if Kelly somehow walked through the door today, he probably wouldn’t recognize her. She’d be a grown woman, not the girl he’d hugged goodbye. She might even be thinking about having kids of her own. But whenever he thought of her, he still pictured his little girl.

That was the one part he hadn’t mentioned to anyone after the shooting at the diner, not that he’d gone into a lot of detail about his moment of clarity about his life to anyone else. At the end, just after he’d made the decision that Steven wasn’t a lost cause, he’d heard not one voice, but two.

One was Mike Franks.

“Guess you weren’t done yet, probie!”

The other was one he wished like hell every day he could hear again.

“I knew you would. I’ll see you soon, Daddy!”

His phone rang, startling him out of his reverie. The number that flashed on the phone showed that it was work. He sighed and put down the beer. Figured he’d only get one sip.

“Gibbs.”

He listened to quick rundown of location and pertinent details. Quantico. Multiple dead bodies, at least one a Marine. Only bright spot was that there was a live witness. Not that it was much of a bright spot. Whenever it was phrased it like the on duty agent was saying it, it meant the witness had only narrowly missed being part of the body count. Even if she wasn’t hospital bound, it was a fair bet she was traumatized.

“I’m on my way.”


	3. The Witness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

“When you regained consciousness, Miss Summers, what did you see?”

Dawn had a feeling Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo would hold her hand if it wasn’t still bloody. Stupid vampires. Or not so stupid, really. Vamps siring Marines and special forces types was bad news. Of course it had to happen to her on her first day in town. Buffy was going to freak. Actually, once she was in private, Dawn might freak a little bit herself. This was really, really not good.

“There was a really big guy holding a knife to my throat,” she said. “Asked me how I liked the view.”

“Then what happened?” DiNozzo asked.

Dawn shrugged.

“I tried to play it cool, so he turned it up a notch. Told me he had a special show just for me.”

She waved in the direction of the dead Marine.

“When I realized he meant that guy, I tried to buy some time. Mouthed off a bit to distract him, and he smacked me around for my trouble. It didn’t last long, though. Then he started torturing him.”

Dawn pointed forlornly at the man she hadn’t been able to save. Corporal Sean McCarthy, she’d heard another investigator say. She hadn’t known his name while he was still alive.

Not that it really mattered. The part that mattered was that he was a vampire victim. It was supposed to be her job to make sure those who killed him were dealt with, because goddess knew these NCIS people wouldn’t be able to. Riley’s promised help could show up any time now...

“When you say torturing,” DiNozzo began gently.

“I mean torturing,” Dawn replied flatly. “It wasn’t his first session either. He was already pretty mangled when the ‘show’ started.”

“Tell me about the show.”

“That knife,” Dawn pointed. “And that one over there. Alternating blades, shallow cuts. Maximum pain, lots of panic, but a nice slow bleed, to allow the greatest possible time until loss of consciousness or death.”

She was doing her best to keep it professional. These Navy investigators didn’t need emotion getting in the way of them doing their job, and her feelings were none of their business anyway. She had to give them just enough to make it seem like she’d been as helpful as possible, and then call in Council people once NCIS was safely out of the way.

Dawn didn’t mention the other reason for the slow bleed- in addition to the extra torture, it also meant the vamp got the maximum feeding time. Let NCIS assume what they liked- hopefully they’d go with ‘sadist with a grudge against the Marines’. It would certainly sound far more plausible to the uninitiated than ‘vampires eating Marines’.

“You sound like you know a lot about this,” DiNozzo said, his previously sympathetic, flirty manner tinged slightly with suspicion, though he kept his voice pleasant.

“Yeah,” Dawn said, not bothering to hide the bitterness that still lingered, even after all this time. “Lucky me.”

It had taken years to stop being angry with herself for not doing something, anything different- something that would have saved her sister and changed everything that happened after that night. The best part of a decade, actually.

She sighed at DiNozzo’s still distrustful expression.

“I have the scars to show how I know so much about it, ok? I’d pull my shirt up, but your partner asked me not to touch anything, including my clothes. Apparently it’s all evidence. So since you’re the one wearing gloves, you’re free to take off my shirt if you want to take a look.”

Agent DiNozzo had evidently not been expecting to hear that. Before he could respond, someone else joined the conversation.

“DiNozzo, why the hell do you have a witness inviting you to undress her?”

Dawn tried not to snicker as DiNozzo winced. The annoyed looking gray haired guy behind him had to be his boss. It was petty, she knew, but it was good to know Tuesday was a pain in someone else’s ass too.

“Long story, boss,” DiNozzo said hastily. “Dawn, this is Special Agent Gibbs. Boss, our witness, Dawn Summers. She was walking back to her car after dinner at the officers’ club when she was hit over the head. Woke up here with a front row seat for the torture and murder of Corporal McCarthy.”

“How’d she end up covered in blood?” Gibbs demanded, his eyes taking in the blood on her hands and pants, as well as the livid bruise on her face.

“Don’t worry, most of it’s not mine,” Dawn assured him.

The look on Gibbs face was reminiscent of Buffy’s right before she went off on a demon in Slayer smash mode. Somehow, she suspected that Gibbs had a similar reaction to people hurting ‘defenceless girls’.

“Tried to help McCarthy, boss,” DiNozzo replied. “Base MPs weren’t exactly subtle in their arrival. When the perps took off, Ms. Summers managed to break free and did what she could for the other victim.”

“Unfortunately, by that time, it was a little too late,” Dawn said. “God, this is just my luck. I hate Tuesdays.”

She absentmindedly brushed some hair back from her face and then cursed creatively as she realized she’d just smeared blood on her forehead.

“Great. Does this mean my face is evidence now, too?”

“It already was,” Gibbs told her. “Don’t worry, you get to keep it. We just take pictures. ”

“And swabs,” DiNozzo added helpfully.

“How long before I can wash my hands?” Dawn asked. “And when will I be able to leave? Riley couldn’t come, he’s alone with the kids, but he said he’d send someone to drive me back to my hotel.”

“Riley?” Gibbs asked lightly.

“Riley Finn,” Dawn replied. “Family friend. He works at the Pentagon. I touched base with him this afternoon right after I checked in to my hotel, then I had to drive down here to meet with some stupid brassa- um, general type people.”

Gibbs smothered a chuckle at her hasty correction.

“I called him once- well, once the police had everything under control,” Dawn continued. “Riley’s my emergency contact in these parts, seeing as the rest of my family is an ocean away.”

Gibbs was pleased to note that DiNozzo was taking all this down instead of gawking at the girl.

“I’ll get someone to come take whatever photos and samples we need right away, Miss Summers,” he told her. He tried not to look at her too much. He couldn’t help seeing his daughter when he looked at girls like this, especially on a night like this when he’d already been thinking about Kelly. Seeing your child like this was any parent’s second worst nightmare. He’d already lived the worst one.

“Your attackers didn’t take your phone?” DiNozzo asked.

Dawn shrugged.

“They did, but they dropped it right in front of me. I think the idea was to let it drive me crazy that I could call for help if I could only reach it. A little round of mind games to warm up before they started in on the physical torture. I’m just lucky the police showed up before things got that far.”

She had actually been terrified they’d do something intelligent like check her contacts. One look at the last few number dialled and she’d have been an instant happy meal. There were very few vamps who didn’t know who Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane were, and ‘Buffy’ and ‘Faith’ were her two most recent calls. Fortunately, they’d just taunted her with it.

“How’d you get the bruises on your neck?” Gibbs asked.

“My neck?” Dawn looked puzzled, then panicked as her hands flew to her bruised but otherwise empty neck.

“My locket! Oh my god, one of those bastards took it! They must have pulled it off while I was still out.”

Dawn looked around, hoping against hope she’d spot it on the floor somewhere.

“DiNozzo, make sure you get photos,” Gibbs said in an undertone. “Was there anything special about the locket, Miss Summers? Was it valuable?”

“Sentimental value only,” she said, sounding devastated. “Monetarily, it’s almost worthless, I doubt it’s even fifty bucks. But to me, it’s pretty much priceless.”

“Can you describe it, please?” DiNozzo asked.

Dawn hesitated, and the two agents could see her trying to form the mental image in her mind.

“Um, an old fashioned locket, silver, oval. Inside there’s a photo of my mother, my sister, and me, surrounded by a braid made with a strand of each of our hair. It’s the only photo we have left of all three of us, and it was too small to make larger copies that aren’t all blurry. They must have taken it while I was still out. I didn’t know it was gone.”

Dawn looked stricken, close to tears for the first time since Gibbs had seen her.

“If it’s in here anywhere, we’ll find it,” Gibbs told her. “But it might be a while before we can return it to you. Everything in this building is evidence right now.”

Dawn tried to get herself back under control. It was probably in there somewhere. The locket had a cross on the outside- it was doubtful the vamps would have held onto it. Probably why they’d ripped it off in the first place.

“I can be patient if I know I’m getting it back at some point,” she said. “Please let me know if you find it.”  
She turned back to DiNozzo. Gibbs stayed where he was, satisfied to let DiNozzo finish questioning her.

“So, Agent DiNozzo, where were we?”

“Torturing Corporal McCarthy,” DiNozzo replied.

“Right. I was freaking out, but the guy doing it must have expected that, cause he just laughed. Actually, I think he kinda got off on it. While he was busy with McCarthy, I tried to work my hands free.”

“Your hands were tied?” DiNozzo asked, making a note.

“Yeah, behind my back,” Dawn replied. “Not very well, as it turned out, but it’s tough to undo knots you can’t see.”

She tried not to rub at her sore wrists. She’d chafed them raw trying to work one hand or the other free without drawing the vamps’ attention to what she was doing. She’d had much better luck freeing her legs. Fortunately, these vamps either hadn’t been expecting effective resistance on her part or hadn’t been experienced kidnappers- they’d gone with rope restraints, not chains or zip ties, which were much more difficult. They’d actually been tied pretty well, but she couldn’t exactly tell NCIS that- or how much practice she’d had at undoing knots she couldn’t see.

“Then what?” DiNozzo prompted.

“There were sirens outside, and someone started banging on the door. The guy torturing Corporal McCarthy yelled at his buddies. They headed that way-“ She pointed at the rear entrance to the warehouse. “He started toward me, like he was going to take care of me before he left, but the police were almost through the door, so he just... _snarled_ at me and ran for it.”

Dawn felt safe adding as many truthful details as she could, like the snarling. She was of course omitting the fact that all three ‘people’ she’d seen were vampires, that the one in charge had been in game face when he’d snarled at her, and that the vamps might not have been choosing their vics at random. That particular detail would lead to a whole world of questions she did not want to answer.

“The police busted in, and of course they saw the guys running for it, so they went after them. I pulled free pretty quick since I didn’t have to try to be subtle about it anymore and went over to McCarthy to try to help. He was pretty messed up, but still breathing, so I tried to put pressure on his wounds, stop the bleeding. I think I just made it worse, there was blood everywhere...”

Dawn looked down at her bloody hands. That part was true enough. She’d had very little hope that she’d be able to save McCarthy- she was pretty sure the plan had been torture him until he was desperate enough to beg. She was guessing he had been a candidate for siring. Otherwise he’d have been drained and tossed like the pile of corpses on the far side of the warehouse. He’d been conscious right up until the end, and she couldn’t get the look in his eyes out of her head. He’d known how bad off he was.

She wasn’t used to this. Usually if she interacted with vampire victims, it was either ones who were definitely going to survive or ones who were already dead. Slayers were the ones who saw things like this, not Watchers. Buffy had never talked about the ones who didn’t make it. Faith never talked about any of them.

“You did the best you could,” DiNozzo assured her. “Don’t blame yourself for this, Dawn. From the looks of it, even if you were the world’s best EMT, there isn’t much you could have done.”

“Yeah, right,” Dawn said listlessly. “That’s what people always say when something awful happens. ‘There’s nothing you could have done.’ It ranks right up there with ‘she died quickly and painlessly and probably never knew what was happening’ on the list of things people say to make you feel better.”

Gibbs decided not to address the tone of experience in her voice. From the sound of it, this girl’s life was no picnic even before this evening.

“If you really want to, you can go with depressed and guilty,” Gibbs told her. “But unless it was your idea to kidnap and torture him, I don’t think you can call this your fault.”

“No, but that doesn’t really help,” Dawn replied tiredly. “Will I be able to go soon? I really just want to get out of these clothes and take a shower.”

DiNozzo spotted Ziva headed toward them, with what looked to be a Marine trailing behind her.

“I think my partner is coming to get your clothes for evidence right now, actually,” he said, flashing her a grin.

When Dawn looked up, she zeroed in on the man following Ziva.

“Graham?”

Ziva reached them, and Gibbs could see she didn’t look entirely happy. The Marine, on the other hand, looked immensely relieved to see Dawn alive and more or less well.

“Major Graham Miller,” Ziva announced, “would not accept that he needed to wait outside and insisted he’d been ordered by his superiors to pick up Miss Summers.”

“Ordered? I’m touched you care so much, Graham,” Dawn said acidly.

Behind her, DiNozzo raised an eyebrow at the tone.

“Finn does technically outrank me these days,” Miller replied soothingly. “Also, it was less ordered than he threatened to hogtie me and hand me over to your sister for use as a practice dummy if I didn’t get you safely back to your hotel.”

“What if I don’t want to go back to my hotel?”

“Then I take you wherever you do want to go. I’m your bodyguard tonight, brat. Get used to it.”

“Ziva, make sure we get all photos and samples we need from Miss Summers, and bag her clothes.”

Seeing Dawn about to protest, Miller intervened.

“I have a set of clothes here that should fit you.”

“How?” Dawn demanded.

“Stopped off at Potomac Mills on the way down,” Graham replied drily.

Dawn opened her mouth to say that the mall should have been closed this late, then decided it was better not to. She wasn’t entirely sure Graham wasn’t serious.

Ziva took the bag he held, and led Dawn to a corner where she could be swabbed for samples and then change without an audience.

\---

Graham waited until they were in the car and well away from the lights and tape of the crime scene before he asked Dawn what had happened.

“Vamps,” she muttered. “Stupid bloodsuckers that exist to make my family’s life hell.”

“Didn’t they realize they sent you here on a Tuesday?” Graham grinned.

Dawn groaned.

“Shut up! Honestly, this is a new record even for a Tuesday. Faith has been to DC dozens of times and it was always quiet as anything. She was bored out of her gourd the last time she was here- not one single vamp. I come here, and BAM! Fang central in less than twelve hours. And you didn’t stop at Potomac Mills. These are the jeans I couldn’t find in Madagascar.”

“Yeah, I found them after you left. Still not sure how they ended up in a tree. But I didn’t think you wanted to tell the nice agents all about your personal life. Going to call in the big guns?” Graham asked.

“They probably think you’re a shoplifter now,” Dawn grumbled. “And as for calling in the big guns, I don’t have to. Willow’s supposed to be here next week anyway to do the final wards on the new Council house before anyone moves in. Buffy and Xander said they would come too as long as nothing big was happening, and we’d have a housewarming with everyone. So I don’t need to call them in, I just have to hold out until they get here. Maybe I should ask Will to bring her trip forward. But I will definitely call in and let everyone know what’s going on.”

“You have a secure line?” Graham asked.

Dawn shook her head.

“Didn’t think I’d need one. DC was supposed to be quiet, and once the house is operational, I wouldn’t need to worry about it anyway.”

“You do now that NCIS is involved,” Graham replied. “Here, use mine. I’ll see about getting you a new phone in the morning. You’re not the only one who will need to report in.”

Dawn took it and dialed.

“Dawn Summers. Put me through to my sister. What do you mean she’s unavailable? Ok, then Giles. Oh, right I forgot about that. What about Will- oh, hi, Andrew. No, Faith will be fine if everyone else is busy. Thanks. Who was that on phone duty, anyway? I didn’t recognize her.”

Dawn covered the phone and mouthed ‘is this call important?’ at Graham, who snickered.

When Faith got on, Dawn gave her a rundown of everything that had happened, up to and including Graham driving her back to town. Faith was full of sympathy.

“Damn, D. I’ve swung through DC how many times and never saw more than one or two fledges just striking out on their own. You’re there one night and fighting combat trained vamps. I don’t know how you do it.”

“I’m special,” Dawn said resignedly. “Anyway, this could put a cramp in the schedule for the week. I’m probably going to have to spend some time dealing with investigators, and I’m definitely going to need a Slayer to help track these guys down and deal with them. They are so above and beyond what I can handle on my own it’s not even funny. Can you ask Willow if it’s possible to bring her trip over here forward? I suddenly feel a lot less safe in a hotel. I’d like to move into the house ASAP-just accelerate the whole timeline on it.”

“Will do, D. B’s still asleep, but gotta warn you, she’s been on edge all day, almost like she knew something was coming. She wasn’t sharing, so no idea if the bug up her butt is about this, or if there’s something else starting. Expect her to call first thing your AM.”

“Great. I’d better get to bed, then. I don’t think I can deal with a transatlantic big sisterly freakout on less than five hours. Take care, Faith.”

“You too.”

“You know if you want backup, Riley and I have you covered until a Slayer gets here,” Graham told her. “We should be able to hold the fort until the cavalry arrive.”

“Thanks,” Dawn said. “For now, I wouldn’t actually mind that whole bodyguard thing you mentioned in front of the nice agents. I wasn’t joking about not feeling safe in a hotel after the day I just had. You know there’s zero protection in a hotel.”

“I could stay and be your protection,” Graham grinned.

“With ordinary vamps, maybe,” Dawn replied seriously. “Not these ones. They were definitely military before they were undead. They’re not your average fledge. And body mass wise, the smallest one of them was an even match for you. I’d rather just stay at yours. I mean, if it’s not awkward for you to have a houseguest?”

“Not a problem,” Graham said, sounding perfectly happy with the arrangement. “I’m right in Pentagon City, so you won’t be late for your morning meetings.”

“I think my morning meeting has been pre-empted,” Dawn grumped. “I can’t go anywhere near the local magic users if NCIS may be taking an interest. Agent Flirtozzo was ok with my story, but I don’t know about his boss. His partner definitely wasn’t. Either way, I have a funny feeling they’re going to want to talk to me some more.”

“Count on it,” Graham replied. “Crap, I didn’t even think about that. Finn’s going to blow a gasket when I tell him we may have to shut down one of their investigations.”

“It’s his fault anyway,” Dawn said. “I told him me and Tuesdays were non-mixy things and he didn’t listen and scheduled me for Tuesday anyway. But what’s NCIS, and how come they get jurisdiction?”

Graham grimaced.

“Sorry, I forgot you wouldn’t know the alphabet soup around here yet. Don’t worry, you’ll pick up the acronyms pretty quick. NCIS is Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Think CSI for the Navy and Marines, but with a side order of intelligence and counterespionage. And seeing as most of those poor bastards in the body pile were Marines, it’s their case.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Dawn asked.

“They’re a total pain in the ass,” Graham confessed. “We’ve crossed trails with them a couple times before.  
They don’t like leaving cases unsolved and the old ‘gangs on PCP’ standby in no way cuts it with that crowd. The ones that were there tonight, the major case response team, are the worst of the lot. Guy in charge has a reputation for being a bulldog.”

“Good tempered and attached to his family?” Dawn suggested.

“Funny. More like stubborn as all hell and determined to get to the bottom of any case that crosses his desk,” Graham said. “And it gets worse if he gets shut down from above, because he has a habit of skirting orders if he thinks there’s something hinky going on.”

“Sounds like he’d be a fan of rule seven,” Dawn mused.

“Seven... It will not kill you to say ‘sorry’?”

“No, that’s six. Seven is if you think something’s hinky, it probably is.”

“Yeah, he’d probably be down with that. Like I said, bulldog.”

“For ordinary cases, I’m sure that’s a good thing, but in this case, ugh. I’ll talk to Giles tomorrow and see if we have any local contacts who might have an in with NCIS or any favors they can call in to smooth the way for us. Riley can’t make this go away?”

An investigator like that was a headache and a half for the Council, unless of course, it was an ally who would make the case officially go away while privately passing on any info the Council needed to deal with it properly. Unfortunately, as far as Dawn knew, they currently had no contacts at NCIS. Hell, until tonight, she hadn’t even known they existed.

Graham shrugged.

“He can get the orders issued if it’s necessary, but he’ll probably try to just stonewall first.”

Dawn sighed.

“We’ll let him try that, then. Forget about having him shut it down officially. If we have to, we can always kill it at top level. Pretty sure the President outranks Riley and the NCIS crew both. But that’s last resort. Anyway, those are problems for tomorrow. For now, I’d rather just get to your place and get some sleep.”

“You know, you’re not supposed to sleep for several hours after a concussion.”

“Really?” Dawn asked, feigning surprise. “What did you have in mind to keep me awake, Major?”


	4. Investigating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Gibbs waited until Major Miller had escorted Summers- now dressed in a pair of jeans that fit too well to be new and a Marines sweatshirt that was definitely Miller’s- away. Presumably, they were heading to her hotel, although he’d overheard Summers saying she wasn’t sure she felt safe in a hotel now. Then he turned to his team.

“All right, tell me what happened here.”

“It’s complicated, boss, and the sequence of events starts well before this evening,” McGee replied. “Ducky and Palmer are still bagging them, but we’ve got about a dozen corpses, TOD ranging from just over an hour ago for Corporal McCarthy to a few Ducky may have some trouble with- could be days, could be weeks, given the weather. The days have been warming up, but it’s been at or below freezing every night for the past couple months. The building isn’t heated, and there are no windows, so it’s basically a fridge in here.”

“Tonight is what we have a solid timeline for,” DiNozzo said, picking up where McGee left off. “Our witness is Dawn Summers, age 25, formerly of California, currently based in England. Works for an organization called Guardian International. She’s in town on business, flew in from London this afternoon. She’s being transferred to DC full time at the end of the month. This week was supposed to be all planning meetings. She checked into the Monaco, did some shopping, and then drove down to Quantico for a late afternoon meeting with what she described as ‘general type people’. Had dinner at the officers’ club, went outside to get in her car for the drive back to her hotel, got grabbed from behind and knocked out. Woke up here, and I think you heard the rest, boss.”

“Do we think Summers was assaulted while she was unconscious?” McGee asked, trying not to wince as he said it. He hated to ask, but Summers’ statement had made the mentality of the men who’d abducted her disturbingly clear.

“She didn’t say anything,” DiNozzo replied. “And she seemed pretty sure she wasn’t unconscious very long. She thought it was only five minutes or so.”

He didn’t say out loud that it was a little worrisome that Dawn had enough experience to sound so sure about her estimate for how long she’d be out.

“Five minutes is enough time for some,” Ziva pointed out. “But I do not think she was. Though I doubt she would tell us if she had been.”

“What makes you say that, Ziva?” Gibbs asked.

She shrugged.

“It is a feeling. She is too calm about the situation.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call her calm, Ziva,” Tony snapped. “I think she kept herself under control, but she was pretty upset by what happened. She said she’s been tortured before, in a similar manner to McCarthy. That’s why she was telling me to take her shirt off, boss- she was going to show me the scars.”

Gibbs frowned.

“Summers doesn’t fit the profile of the other victims. Was she a random choice, or do the attackers know her? Was she targeted for a reason? It wouldn’t have been hard to track her if they knew she was in town.”

“Perhaps we can ask Miss Summers tomorrow if she recognized any of the attackers,” Ziva suggested. “She will be coming to NCIS to work with an artist to create a sketch of the torturer.”

“I think if she recognized someone or knew why this happened, she might have mentioned it, Ziva,” Tony told her.

“And I disagree. I think she was perfectly aware that you found her attractive, and she used that to cover holes in her story.”

“You think she’s lying to us?” Gibbs asked.

Ziva hesitated. When she spoke, it was clear she was choosing her words carefully.

“I do not know that she is precisely _lying_. But I think she is withholding information. I feel she could tell us more if she chooses.”

“What makes you say that, Ziva?” Gibbs asked, wondering if she could articulate what it was prompting her feeling.  
Ziva considered for a minute before she answered, and when she did, it was slow, as if she were trying to put it together for herself as much as for him.

“Again, she is too calm. It is not the calm of shock, this is the calm of someone who has seen such things before. It is the calm that comes with training and experience. Dawn Summers is, what is the phrase? Not a first time at this rodeo.”

Gibbs nodded thoughtfully. He appreciated Ziva’s insight. Sometimes it was necessary, especially with cases like this. He looked at the girl and saw his daughter. Ziva looked at the girl and saw just the girl.

“She’s a little young to be a pro, Ziva,” Tony pointed out. “Her ID says she turned twenty-five in October.”

Ziva shrugged.

“When I was twenty-five, I was running missions for Mossad. Also, she declined medical attention, despite obvious injuries. Gibbs, she was more concerned that someone show up to take her home than anything else! And that is another thing- Major Miller was most insistent that he must be taken to Dawn Summers and that waiting outside was not acceptable. He said her sister scares him far more than I could.”

“That’s only because he doesn’t know you, Ziva,” Tony assured her.

She glared at him.

“He did not care who I am or what I might be able to do. He told me specifically that unless I was their long lost sister, there was no way I could do as much damage to him as Buffy Summers.”

“McGee, first thing in the morning-“

“Background check on Dawn Summers, looking for any ties to other agencies or signs of a manufactured identity.”

“DiNozzo-“

“Looking for past cases that fit our kidnappers’ m.o., and trying to find anything on Summers’ torture case. On it, boss.”

Ziva raised an eyebrow.

“And what do I do?” she asked.

“See if you can find the necklace Miss Summers was so worried about,” Gibbs replied. “If she’s someone’s operative, that necklace must be important or she wouldn’t ask about it.”

“And if she is just an unlucky girl…?” Ziva prompted.

“Then I’ll sleep a little better knowing we found something important to her after the night she just had,” Gibbs replied.

\---

Buffy frowned. As she’d expected, she was back in her room. But as she looked around, the room flickered. It reminded her of tirer la couveture, except that she hadn’t done any magic this time. Both rooms looked familiar, and both of them were definitely hers. She knew that, although she wasn’t sure how she knew it. What she really didn’t understand was why they kept switching. The changes were subtle, but she could still see them if she paid attention.

She tried the closet door, first tentatively, then with increasing strength, until she was using the full power of the Slayer against it. The door stubbornly refused to budge. She kicked it in frustration, putting enough power behind the blow that a normal door would have been blown off its hinges or shattered, and it didn’t even twitch. She was sure whatever was behind the door was important.

“Mom?” she called cautiously. “Are you here?”

For a long moment, she thought there wasn’t going to be an answer.

“Where else would I be?” called a voice from downstairs.

“Can you come up here for a sec?” Buffy asked, pondering the still jammed closet door. Slayer strength should have been enough to open it, definitely. Yet it had failed twice.

“Still haven’t done anything about that, sweetheart?”

Buffy turned. This time, she got a better look at her ‘mother’. She was younger than Joyce- in fact, she looked to be not much older than Buffy herself. That startled her for a minute, but she realized that whenever Joyce appeared in her dreams, she hadn’t aged either. She was frozen in time at the age Buffy had last seen her. Did that mean this woman was a memory, or was she dead too?

“I don’t know what to do,” Buffy said. “Brute force isn’t cutting it. You told me to try the basement before…”

“Yes,” the redhead agreed. “All the tools your father has down there, there’s sure to be something that will work. “

Buffy smiled. After hanging around Xander for years, she had picked up a thing or two about tools, especially the ones that could double as weapons- and when you got right down to it, most hand tools could. She’d found them a lot more interesting once she’d worked that out.

“Ok, be right back up,” she said, forcing herself to be cheerful. If there was one thing years of dealing with Slayer dreams had taught her, it was that getting frustrated wouldn’t help.

She walked downstairs, watching the whole house flicker as she did, as if it couldn’t quite decide what setting it should be on. Not much changed, though. She stopped halfway down the stairs- the photos on the wall in the alternate setting, the one that didn’t feel as familiar, didn’t have Dawn in them anywhere. She glanced back up the stairs to find her mother was following her.

“Yes, it is a little confusing,” her mother said, sounding sad. “I don’t understand it. They tell me she’s my daughter, but baby, you were an only child. Not that we didn’t want another…”

Buffy bit off her instinctive reply- her mother had known Dawn wasn’t hers but loved her anyway.

She walked around into the kitchen and stepped through the door into the basement- only to find that there was a definite difference here. The flickering had stopped- on a basement Buffy didn’t recognize. This was not the basement at Revello Drive, or the house in LA. This was someone’s workshop. Someone Xander would love to talk to, because they were clearly good with their hands- and building a boat. Who built a boat in their basement?

Better question – how did they get the boat out of the basement once it was done?

“Take a closer look,” her mother’s voice floated down the stairs after her.

Buffy stepped cautiously down into the basement. There was a bloodstain on the floor at one end. It upset her, but she wasn’t completely sure why. All she could say was that it felt wrong. The basement was supposed to be a safe place. She looked at the boat. There was a name written across the back of it, but her eyes refused to focus on the name, no matter how hard she concentrated.

“I can’t read it, Mom. Why can’t I read it?” she asked, puzzled. “It’s all fuzzy!”

“Oh, baby…”

Her mother was at the top of the stairs, and sounded disappointed.

“I hoped that would work. I guess we’ll just have to try the closet again. Are you bringing the crowbar?”

“You hoped what would work?” Buffy asked. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

She started up the stairs…

…only to be shaken awake.

Definitely awake, and it was definitely morning, around the time she normally woke up unless she’d been patrolling really late.

Xander was leaning over her, looking concerned.

“You ok, Buff? You were talking in your sleep, and I have to tell you, that’s a first. Not that I’m in your room while you sleep all that often or anything, cause hello, creepy stalker…”

Buffy giggled.

“Good morning to you, too, Xander,” she said. “What’s up?”

Xander made a face.

“I drew the short straw is what’s up. I want to start by saying she’s ok, so don’t freak out-“

“Oh god, what happened to Dawn this time?” Buffy demanded, perfectly aware that Dawn was the only person no one else would want to deliver bad news to her about. Somehow the minis always maneuvered Xander or Willow into doing it, regardless of who Dawn had reported to.

“There was an incident in Quantico overnight,” Xander said. “She called in not that long ago- and no, we didn’t wake you up to talk to her. She was heading to bed herself, cause she was beat.”

“Beat or beaten?” Buffy asked, aware she wasn’t completely succeeding at the ‘try not to freak out’. “She hasn’t even been there twenty-four hours!”

“Yeah, but in our cleverness, we had her travel on Tuesday,” Xander pointed out. “She did her usual ‘I’m fine’ shtick, but before you worry too much, we also got a separate call from Riley saying she’s a little bruised, but nothing serious. They checked her out at the scene, and there was nothing dire enough to insist she go to the hospital. She’s spending the night at Graham’s.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. Graham was no doubt heartbroken about that. Not that she officially knew about the two of them- Dawn hadn’t said anything to her. But the Slayers who had been with her on the Madagascar assignment were two of the biggest gossips at Slayer Central…

“She’s going to call back when she wakes up in the morning- her morning, that is,” Xander told her. “You can get the blow by blow with the rest of us then, but the short and sweet is some genius decided to sire himself some special forces.”

Buffy groaned.

“Of course this happens as soon as we send Dawn there, as opposed to the twenty or so times Faith has swung through DC.”

“She’s talented like that,” Xander agreed. “Anyway, I have the caffeine and the sugary goodness ready whenever you want it. You only need to say the word.”

“Actually, Xan, I think I need more than just sugar and caffeine this morning.”

Xander got a look of momentary panic.

“I want to have breakfast with you and Wills, just the three of us- unless Giles is back already?”

Xander shook his head, grinning with relief that a private breakfast was all she’d meant.

“Not due in until lunchtime, and that’s assuming the trains are on time, because I don’t think he’s up to driving this morning. Sounds like his London friends threw a pretty good party to celebrate him becoming Lord Rupert.”

Buffy grinned.

“It’s just a shame the honor wasn’t made public. Giles deserves it,” she said, getting up and heading for the bathroom.

“Yeah,” Xander called after her, “but if the Queen awarded it publicly, people would probably want to know what Giles had done to deserve it, and can you imagine how hysterical the Daily Fail would get about vampires?”

Buffy could, and the thought of it made her giggle in the shower.

When she finished, she joined Xander and Willow in the study she’d appropriated as a private dining room last year so she and the Scoobies could occasionally have a relaxed meal somewhere other than their offices without younger Slayers gawking and doing things like putting their elbows in the butter dish because they’d been surreptitiously staring at the ‘famous’ Slayers, the Red Witch, the One Who Sees, or the Senior Watcher.

Willow grinned.

“Hey Buff. I hear Dawn managed to find trouble on a Tuesday.”

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“I know she’s an adult now, but seriously, I still think it might qualify as a public service to start locking her in a safe room once a week.”

“So is that why you wanted to talk to us?” Xander asked.

Buffy feigned shock.

“I’m hurt! I can’t want to have breakfast with just my two best friends?” she asked.

Xander snorted.

“I get wanting to have a quiet breakfast, especially with a new crop of minis just in, but you sounded like there was something.”

“There might be,” Buffy agreed, grabbing an almond Danish and a cup of tea. “That’s why I wanted to talk to my bestest buds in the world…”


	5. Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Buffy came out of her trance, stretching legs that were slightly stiff from unexpectedly remaining so long in one position. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in meditation mode, but it had definitely been more time than she’d planned on when they started. Willow had reckoned it wouldn’t take long to get to the bottom of whatever was on her mind.

Willow’s theory had been if Buffy felt like it wasn’t a Slayer dream, it made sense to check her aura and mind for traces of magic. She hadn’t expected to actually find anything, but it looked like she had. Xander had thrown up his hands and announced he was going to get the good coffee- and strong tea for whenever Giles arrived.

“What’s the verdict, Wills?” she asked cheerfully. Her cheer dimmed when she saw the look of concern on Willow’s face.

“Buffy, this is definitely not new.”

“What exactly is ‘this’?” Buffy asked quietly, reaching for the calm center she’d worked hard to achieve over the years. She’d been hoping to hear everything was ok and she was just overreacting.

“I’m not sure,” Willow said, chewing her lip distractedly. “I think it’s a huge memory modification spell. As big as when Dawn was created. Maybe bigger.”

“Then why didn’t I see any traces of it when I did the spell back when I was all suspicious about Dawn when she first was sent to me?” Buffy asked, trying for reasonable. “That showed that Dawn had been overlaid on my previous memories pretty clearly.”

“It’s older than when Dawn was created,” Willow replied. “I think it dates back to your childhood, definitely before you were Called. I’m not sure what it’s covering, but if there was nothing around you that fell under the original spell, tirer la couveture couldn’t show you what it was covering. Even if it did, the traces would probably have been so faint you would have missed them. You were looking for signs that something was wrong recently, and you found them. You were focused on the sudden Dawn issue, not… whatever this is.”

“What is it covering up, Will?” Buffy asked quietly.

Willow looked at her, wide eyed.

“I don’t know, Buffy. It could be anything. Whatever it is, I don’t think the spell was intended to last this long- the fact that it has means whoever cast it was good. You’ve somehow become aware of it for the first time, so it’s finally starting to fail. In fact, I’m pretty sure the closet door you keep trying to open in your dream means you’ve been fighting subconsciously to break the spell. Whatever it’s hiding, you want to remember on some level. Considering you’ve been basically battering at it with the power of the Slayer the past few nights, it’s taken a real beating, so I doubt it can last much longer. But it’s held for over fifteen years, possibly even longer- I can’t begin to guess what it conceals.”

“I don’t get it,” Buffy whispered. “Who would be doing spells on me that long ago, before I was called? The Council didn’t even know I was a Potential. They missed me- I wasn’t in their records. Merrick had a hard time finding me, even once they knew someone had been called in southern California.”

Willow frowned before answering.

“The Council might not have been aware of you, but someone must have been. I can’t think why else a magic user would go out of their way to modify your memory like this. I mean, it’s definitely not random. This took time and effort and careful casting- if they’d messed it up such a large memory overwrite, you could have been left without any memory or personality. Complete blank slate, worse even than the time I messed up that spell and accidentally wiped all of us at the Magic Box. It’s not the kind of thing anyone who has the power to pull it off would do as a prank.”

She chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“How did you become aware of it, anyway? As potent as it seems to be, I’m surprised you noticed at all, unless you stumbled across something directly related to whatever the spell is hiding.”

Now it was Buffy’s turn to frown.

“I don’t think I did, Will. I told you about that dream- my other mother insisted I needed to get the closet door open. She’s the one who knew about it, not me. As far as I know, it came out of nowhere.”

Willow wrinkled her nose. She decided it wasn’t the time to say so, but she found it interesting that Buffy referred to the mystery woman as her other mother.

“You’re sure she’s not a stand in for you? Some sort of alter ego?”

Buffy shook he head decisively.

“Definitely not. She’s my mother, but she’s not Mom-she looked nothing like Mom.”

Willow sighed.

“You’re right, it’s all confusing. And probably the only way it will make sense is to find out what’s hidden under this spell. But the only way to do that is to end the spell entirely and see what your real memories are. They’re still there, underneath. In fact, I think you probably have a few true memories that were too strong to cover- they just got rewritten to make them fit with whatever false memories you were given.”

“The Kindestod…” Buffy murmured.

She would stake her life on that memory being real. Something like that was huge for a little kid, which is what she had been back then- too huge to forget. And also too important to stay buried once she became the Slayer.

“Probably,” Willow agreed. “I mean, you never mentioned anything about it until you saw it again- and I’m not sure it was even you that brought it up, I think it might have been Joyce who told us about your cousin. It would have made sense for you to mention it sooner to explain why you never went to the hospital, no matter how badly a demon messed you up. It’s like the spell worked around it as best it could, and settled for you repressing it as much as possible. But it couldn’t hide that you’d seen something terrible happen in a hospital, or your instinctive avoidance of hospitals after that.”

“Can you do it, Wills? Take the fake memories off?”

“I can remove the spell if you want to, but even if I don’t, I suspect it will probably dissolve on its own now that you’re fully aware of it- especially if you keep attacking it in your sleep. There’s just no telling how long that will take, or what the effects on your mind will be while it’s fading. And clearly you’re pretty frustrated about it, or you wouldn’t be dreaming about it…”

“We need to talk to Giles first,” Buffy said firmly. “And Dawn, if we can get her on the phone between meetings. This would happen while she’s got the DC problem to deal with. No more spells until we have the rest of the family in on this. I don’t like the idea that someone’s been messing with my head. Even if it was a long time ago. Actually, especially if it was a long time ago. If this is from before Sunnydale, when I was supposed to be normal, it’s probably not covering anything of the good.”

\---

Gibbs arrived at NCIS early the next morning. He hadn’t gotten much sleep. Cases that involved young women were always a little more difficult for him. Rule 10 existed for a reason, but it was one of the rules he had the most trouble with. He really hoped Ziva was right about the girl not having been assaulted.

He still wasn’t sure what to make of Dawn Summers. Ziva was convinced that the girl wasn’t outright lying about who had attacked her. There’d been a running argument between her and DiNozzo on the drive back – McGee had quietly absconded in the van as soon as all the evidence was loaded and left the bickering pair to ride back with Gibbs. Ziva stubbornly held to her position that Summers knew more than she had said. Gibbs wasn’t as sure as she was, but he trusted Ziva’s instincts. They were usually good.

Ziva had found Summers’ locket- or what was left of it. It had been smashed, likely deliberately from the looks of it. The pieces were down in Abby’s lab. Abby had clucked sympathetically when Ziva told her the story and assured them the photo was salvageable.

“Boss, I left a message on Dawn Summers’ phone,” McGee greeted him. “Requested she call us back to schedule time we can interview her and then have her sit down with the sketch artist. I’m hoping she’ll call back soon, it’s early enough that she shouldn’t be busy yet.”

“It’s a good bet she’s still asleep, McFly,” DiNozzo pointed out.

“Or she may still be awake,” Ziva interjected. “Some people’s reaction to the adrenaline of such a situation leaves them unable to sleep.”

“If she was still awake, she would have answered her phone, Ziva,” DiNozzo pointed out.

“She could have been in the shower!” Ziva retorted.

From the sounds of it, the two of them had already been at it this morning- odds were it was something to do with Summers again.

“McGee, I want to know how Miller got there so quickly last night. He was outside waiting when I got there.”

“Good question, boss,” McGee replied. “That’s actually on my list of questions for Miss Summers. I pulled her cell phone records, and get this- she had no less than eight incoming calls from Colonel Riley Finn during the period when she was being held captive. She called him back as soon as the MPs were on the scene, but-“

“But that’s still not enough time for Miller to grab clothes for Summers, drive down, and be waiting outside when I got there,” Gibbs finished.

“Exactly,” McGee replied. “So I got curious and pulled Finn’s call records. He called Miller after his fourth call to Summers went unanswered.”

“He knew something wasn’t right,” Gibbs said flatly.

“You know, I’m starting to wonder what exactly Dawn Summers is involved in,” DiNozzo said.

“Thank you!” Ziva snapped.

“This is actually where it gets interesting, boss,” McGee said. “Finn continued trying to contact Summers with no success. After his seventh call, Quantico MPs got an anonymous tip that there was suspicious activity at that warehouse. There’s nothing on Finn’s cell phone at the time the call was placed, but I traced the anonymous call. It came from a Pentagon office.”

“Gee, what a coincidence,” Gibbs said drily. “Didn’t Summers say Colonel Finn works at the Pentagon?”

“Bingo,” McGee said. “A few minutes later, Finn calls Miller again. He tries Summers one more time. Finally, Summers calls Finn- according to the timestamp, not long after the MPs had entered the building.”

“Still think she is just an unlucky girl, Tony?” Ziva demanded.

“What do we know about Finn and Miller?” Gibbs asked.

“Both members of a highly classified special ops team- as is Finn’s wife, incidentally. Finn has an office at the Pentagon, but it looks like the team is currently based out of Quantico.”

“It looks like?” Gibbs repeated. “Are they or aren’t they, McGee?”

“Boss, this is not only classified, there’s heavy security around it. I’m having more trouble getting at these files than hacking into the CIA. Whatever this team actually does, they really don’t want it getting out.”

Gibbs glanced at McGee’s screen, which was Finn and Miller’s service records, along with what McGee had been able to find on their unit.

“It started out as an Army project called the Initiative,” he read. “But in 2000, they rolled it up and the Corps took it over. Did their best to cover up the unit’s origins, and made sure it was even more heavily classified. Something went wrong.”

“Whatever it was, it caused a serious shakeup. Not only did the Marines take over, close to half the original unit ended up dead,” McGee replied.

“Be nice to see the full file,” Gibbs told him. Taking in the look of suppressed panic on McGee’s face, he amended his statement. “Do what you can, McGee.”

“Where are you going, boss?” DiNozzo asked.

“To visit Colonel Finn. Maybe he’ll fill us in.”

Ziva shook her head as Gibbs got on the elevator.

“If Summers is somebody’s agent, Finn will tell us nothing.”

\---

When Dawn woke the next morning, there were almost no surprises. As she’d expected, her wrists and ankles were sore, not to mention her neck. Despite sleeping a good five hours, she still felt wrung out. She probably would have slept longer if not for the racket her stupid phone was making.

Grabbing the offending object off the bedside table, she saw she had multiple missed calls and two new voicemails waiting for her. One was definitely from her sister. The other was a DC area code, so probably NCIS. Although, if it was her afternoon meeting trying to cancel, she might have to curse someone...

Graham was as good company as he’d been last time she’d run into him, in Madegascar last year. She couldn’t believe he still had her jeans. He was the only surprise. Or, more accurately, his absence was. She’d expected he’d still be in bed with her.  
The door opened, and Graham entered, carrying a breakfast tray.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” he asked.

Dawn shook her head.

“No, that honor went to my phone and its stupid notion that I should know my sister is freaking out.”

Graham smirked.

“At least she’s an ocean away for the freakout part. Look, I need to report to Riley. He has to know what went down last night, especially if we’ve got hostiles targeting military personnel. You know as well as I do that NCIS aren’t qualified to handle that. And I want him to hear what’s going on before NCIS start hounding him, assuming they haven’t already. I shouldn’t be gone long, an hour tops. If NCIS want you, they can wait until I get back to escort you.”

Dawn raised an eyebrow. Someone was taking the bodyguard thing seriously.

“I know I don’t need to tell you this,” Graham added. “But don’t open the door to anyone. We don’t have any idea who might be working with those bloodsuckers, and there’s only basic protection on this place, so don’t take any chances. They could have demons working with them who won’t be kept out by lack of invitation.”

Dawn shivered. That had happened before, and was part of why Willow was so thorough in setting up the wards on any new Council house. They’d learned from experience. No one wanted a repeat of Karagita. The only upside to that slice of horror had been that it taught the minis in training better than any lecture ever could that they were not as unbeatable as they felt. The class of ’07 had been way more cautious than their older sisters when they ‘graduated’.

“How are you going to get in?” Dawn asked.

Graham shook his head with a grin.

“It’s my place, remember? I have a key. I’ll lock the door and deadbolt it, just in case. If you hear anyone other than me come in, go out the window and head for the Metro-it’s morning commute time, so there’ll be a crowd to lose yourself in. Oh, and there’s coffee on the tray. Sounds like you need it.”

Dawn groaned.

“I’m not fully functional until I’ve had my morning infusion of caffeine. I don’t get why I couldn’t have inherited the ability to be totally with it on no sleep. It’s not just a Slayer thing, Mom could do it too. Go talk to Riley while I work on waking up.”

Dawn inhaled her coffee while listening to her voicemail.

The first, as expected, was from her sister. Buffy was about as freaked out as Dawn had expected, but there was also something else going on. She didn’t say what, but Dawn could hear it in her voice. Buffy asked her to call as soon as she woke up. Dawn decided that could wait until she listened to the other voicemail.

The second voicemail was from NCIS, an Agent McGee. She didn’t remember him from last night. He was very apologetic about calling so early, but he urgently needed to know if she could come in to answer a few more questions as soon as possible. They wanted to talk to her again before she started forgetting details. Call as soon as possible.

“Everyone wants me to call as soon as possible,” Dawn muttered. “I’m not even officially in town yet and I’m already overbooked.”

Looking at the tray, she saw Graham had been thoughtful enough to add toast and a couple mini cereal boxes to pick from. She vaguely remembered thinking he was emotionless when she’d first encountered him back in Sunnydale. Her teenage self would have had a fit if someone had taken a time machine back and told her she’d end up sleeping with the man, let alone that he’d be so sweet and considerate.

Of course, her teenage self would also have had a fit if informed just how rough the dating scene was for Slayers and junior Watchers- fighting the good fight tended to be hell on your personal life.

Once she had eaten and dressed- jeans again, she definitely had to get Graham to take her to her hotel room before they went to NCIS- she picked up the phone.

She called NCIS first, as she expected that to be the shorter call. It was only 8:00, but since McGee had left the message at 7, she was fairly sure it wouldn’t be too early to reach him.

“Agent McGee? I got your message. I have an afternoon meeting, but I’m free until then. I’m not really clear on DC geography yet, but I think I can make it over there in the 9 to 9:30ish timeframe. No, Major Miller will make sure I get there. He knows the area. Do I need to tell security I’m there to meet you? Ok. Yes, see you then.”

Dawn frowned. She had no idea where the Navy Yard was, but she was fairly sure Graham would. Her hotel was 10 minutes away, so as long as Graham got back soon, that should give them time to get her there, let her change, and still be on time.

She dialled Buffy next.

She could tell from the tinny sound when her sister answered that she had been put on speaker phone.

“Buffy? What gives?” she asked.

“Hey Dawn. You’re catching the tail end of the ‘what’s the what now’ meeting,” came Xander’s voice.

“Who all is in on this?” Dawn asked. “And why did no one warn me? I feel left out without donuts.”

“Hi, Dawn! How are you feeling this morning?” Buffy asked. “Faith told us about your night.”

“I’ll live,” Dawn said drily. “Though I have to say, I’ve had better nights out.”

“Poor Dawnie,” Willow said. “We have to stop sending you travelling on Tuesdays. From now on, we only let you fly on Wednesdays. That gives you almost a whole week before you have to deal with Tuesday.”

“I’m touched, Will,” Dawn replied. “I’m also in full agreement. Ok, so that’s Buffy, Xander, Willow, and I’m guessing Giles is there too?”

“Slightly worse for the wear, but yes, I’m here,” Giles said.

Dawn snickered. It must have been a serious party- she couldn’t remember Giles ever being hungover before. It was hard to picture, especially since she knew he’d been with his stuffy, proper London friends.

“And me,” she heard Faith add.

“Sounds like a war council to me,” Dawn groaned. “What’s the sitch?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine, actually,” Giles said. “As you may know, Buffy has had some unusual dreams lately. They bothered her, but she seemed sure they were not Slayer dreams, so she tried not to attach undue significance to them. But when the dreams kept returning to the same theme, she brought her concerns to Willow.”

“That jammed closet?” Dawn asked.

“Exactly,” Willow said, taking up where Giles had left off. “Once Buffy told me what was going on, I evaluated her mind, and found traces of a memory modification spell.”

“We expect that, though, right?” Dawn asked. “The monks did that when they made me.”

“Not this spell, they didn’t,” Willow replied. “This is just as big, but older. And what we were discussing is what it could possibly be covering. And whether or not to try to lift it.”

“Will says it’s likely the spell will start to break up on its own now that I’m aware of it,” Buffy explained. “But she’s not sure if there will be weirdness while it’s happening.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to get it over with?” Dawn asked. “Like ripping off a band-aid? And given the Buffy factor, this could be one nasty band-aid.”

“That’s what I said,” Xander replied. “But minus the Buffy factor part, cause I didn’t want her to hit me.”

Dawn snickered at her sister’s protest in the background.

“If there’s possible weirdness,” Xander continued, “then I vote get it over with while things are mostly calm. Waiting and hoping that apocalypse season won’t start early this year is never a good plan.”

“Yeah, except that things may not be so calm right now,” Dawn told him. “You heard about my adventure last night, right? Well, all the vamps involved were military. Combat trained. I don’t know what they’re planning, but I’d feel a lot happier having Slayers here, stat. Experienced Slayers. Not to mention, I’d like to move into the Council house as soon as possible. Vamps don’t need invitations to walk into a hotel.”

“Or even enter a room,” Buffy agreed darkly. “Stay at Graham’s or Riley’s until we get there and the new house is online. Wills?”

“We can be there tomorrow afternoon,” Willow said immediately. “We’ve already missed the westbound flights from Heathrow today, but we can catch the first flight out tomorrow and be there early afternoon your time.”

“Unless you think it’s an emergency,” Buffy cut in. Dawn suppressed a smile at Buffy the full-on overprotective big sister. “In which case, Wills can magic us over right now.”

“I don’t think it’s an emergency,” Dawn reassured them. “Riley and Graham have offered me whatever backup I want until the cavalry arrives, and I honestly wasn’t expecting you would be able to move so fast. I figured we’d probably have to hold the fort until the end of the week at least. And before you ask, Graham’s taking guarding me as seriously as you ever did, Buffy, so no worries there.”

She ignored Faith’s muttered, “I bet he is.”

“Oh, and just to add to everyone’s collective headache, Naval Criminal Investigative Service is looking into last night’s festivities. Graham says they’re persistent. We may have to pull strings to shut them down, but for now I think it’s ok to wait and hope their investigation goes nowhere all on its own. I’m trying for helpful, but not too helpful. So let’s play by the rules for now. You guys travel the normal way. I’ll stay at Graham’s again tonight.”

“I’m sure that won’t bother him at all,” Xander remarked.

“You sleeping with him again, D?” Faith enquired. Dawn could practically hear the grin.

“Faith, you just made Giles clean his glasses.”

“Damn, the audio pickup is that good?”

“If we could return to the issue at hand?” Giles asked at his most repressively British.

“Right. Dawn says she’s got things in DC under control until tomorrow,” Buffy said, taking control before anyone else could get sidetracked by her sister’s sex life, which still usually fell under the category of Things Buffy Does Not Want To Think About. “She’ll do her Sumerian thing this afternoon, stay in this evening, and we will _not_ discuss her evening entertainment. Meanwhile, Will, let’s go ahead and break this spell.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dawn said. “Anything else?”

“You in a hurry, Dawnie?” Willow asked.

“I have to be at NCIS to answer more questions in half an hour, and Graham should be back to escort me any minute,” Dawn replied.

“Gotcha. Call in tonight, ok, Dawn?” Buffy said. “And be careful.”

“Always am,” Dawn said. “You be careful too.”

“When are we not careful?” Faith grinned.

“Do you really expect me to answer that?” Dawn asked wryly.

\---

Buffy looked around the room as Dawn hung up.

“Ok, what does unblocking my memory entail, Will?”

“Not much,” Willow replied. “I just need to grab a few things from stores. It’s not quite like flipping a switch, and how much you notice immediately will depend on how different the spell made things, but you should have your entire memory back within a day or two.”

Buffy nodded.

“Ok.”

Willow gave her a reassuring smile, and then headed to the storeroom to collect what she needed, leaving Buffy, Giles, Xander, and Faith.

“So, B, what do we think we’re expecting?” Faith asked, more to break the rising tension than anything else. Now that it was actually going to happen, Buffy looked more nervous than when they’d just been discussing a theoretical.

Buffy shrugged.

“No idea. We’re basically leaping off a cliff here and hoping there aren’t really big rocks at the bottom.”

“B, it’s you. There’s always really big rocks at the bottom. On good days, they’re just really big rocks.”

“And on not so good days?” Xander asked.

“Really big rocks with teeth that try to eat us.”

“Good to see everyone has a firm grasp of the situation,” Giles sighed. “Though I do wonder...”

Willow bounced back in, carrying a small dish of yellow powder.

“Ok,” she chirped. “Here we go.”

Glancing around, she saw that everyone looked jittery.

“Don’t worry, Buffy. You’ll still remember everything. You’ll just remember everything… else.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad she clarified that,” Xander said. “You mean she’ll still know who she is and who we all are, right, Will?”

“Right. Buffy will still be Buffy. What I’m doing won’t alter any of her memories formed since the spell. But she’ll be Buffy who can access whatever memories this spell is suppressing… as long as that’s what you really want. You don’t have to do this,” she finished, looking worried. “We can just leave things are they are.”

Buffy thought for a moment. It could be that the spell was covering up something she wouldn’t want to know. But it could also be covering something important. She might not ever know without Willow’s help, or she might eventually find out anyway, but with a lot more confusion and possibly a side order of crazy along the way.

And that damned closet that had been bugging her… she was pretty sure if she broke the spell, she would be able to open the door. Her other mother seemed to think it was important. Buffy couldn’t say why, but she trusted the woman, even though she knew she wasn’t Joyce Summers.

“This is what I want, Wills. I don’t like knowing someone’s tampered with my memories, and I really don’t like not knowing what my memory should be.”

Willow nodded.

“Let’s do this,” Buffy said. _Before I lose my nerve._

Willow sprinkled the powder in a circle around Buffy, murmured a few words, and then looked up.

“Will, how much longer?” Buffy asked impatiently.

“That was it,” Willow replied.

Buffy wrinkled her nose.

“I don’t feel any different. I thought it would be”

“Do you remember anything different?” Xander asked.

Buffy frowned, concentrating. She sat back down.

“I don’t think so- wait.”


	6. Knocking On Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Gibbs knocked, knowing as he did that Finn was probably already aware that he was here. An office at the Pentagon came with a few perks, one of them being excellent security on the door. Gibbs had only told the guards on the entrance that he needed to speak with Col. Finn urgently relating to a current investigation.

When the door swung open, Gibbs was surprised to see that Finn was younger than he was, by a good decade at least. Younger than usual for his rank, and definitely younger than he’d been expecting. From what Summers had said, he’d been picturing someone who looked like an uncle or a friend of her father. Finn could have been Summers’ big brother.

“Agent Gibbs. I was told it was a matter of some urgency. I assume this has to do with the incident involving Dawn Summers?”  
Gibbs expression betrayed nothing.

“I’m surprised you’ve already heard. The day is young.”

Finn smiled.

“Dawn’s older sister is a close friend of mine. In fact, she’s my children’s godmother. I’ve known Dawn since she was in middle school. She called me before NCIS was even at the scene, and I sent Graham to drive her back. I wasn’t convinced she would be ok to drive, and she has a nasty tendency to downplay injuries. ”

His grimace told Gibbs more eloquently than words that said tendency had been a distinct problem at some point in the past.

“Graham? You’re referring to Major Miller.”

“Graham Miller and I have served together for a long time, Agent Gibbs. He’s not just one of the men under my command, he’s a friend.”

“You’ve served together for a long time. Would that be since Sunnydale, or before?” Gibbs asked.

Finn's expression took on a practiced neutrality.

“You must be aware that our program is classified. As are most of the assignments I’ve been on. I can’t talk about it.”

Gibbs was neither frustrated nor surprised by the answer. He’d expected it.

“I’m sure you’re a busy man, sir, so let me get right to the point. This case doesn’t look like a normal open and shut murder. Several Marines are dead, and at least three of them had been tortured prior to their death. We haven’t ruled out the possibility that Miss Summers may have been specifically targeted by the perpetrators. She is the only female victim that we’re aware of, as well as the only one who isn’t military, so you can understand we’re a little curious about why they broke their pattern. One of the last people Miss Summers met with before she drove down to Quantico was you. Your unit’s very existence is classified, and it seems like I’d have to go through SecNav if I wanted to find out what exactly it is you do.”

At Finn’s noncommittal nod, Gibbs continued.

“You say she’s a family friend. I’m guessing that’s not a secret. So I’m asking you if there’s any possibility that this attack may be connected to your unit or its mission. If there is, I need to know.”  
Finn sighed.

“I suppose it’s possible there may be a connection somehow,” he said, “But nothing directly related to this unit. From what Graham and Dawn told me, I think it’s highly unlikely that the attackers knowingly targeted her. If they had, she probably would have been dead before the MPs arrived. I think it’s more likely someone was bored and spotted a pretty girl they thought wouldn’t be missed for a while.”

Gibbs knew just from the man’s body language that there was something more he wasn’t saying, but he also knew that he had no leverage to get him to say anything more. Finn’s statement that Summers would have been dead if she’d been deliberately targeted wasn’t helpful, either. It just raised more questions.

He tried a different tack.

“I reviewed what little of Major Miller’s service record is available to us, and I was wondering how it is that you’re a colonel and he’s still major. You both joined the unit at the same time. I would have thought the two of you would have risen through the ranks together.”

Finn grimaced.

“By rights, Graham ought to be Lt. Colonel, and probably up for Colonel himself by now.”

“What happened?” Gibbs asked.

“An op went bad, and someone had to take the fall for it. For… political reasons, the higher ups didn’t want it to be me, so Graham got busted for something that wasn’t his fault, or anyone else’s in the unit. It was mostly a case of bad luck.”

Seeing the closed look on Finn’s face, Gibbs knew better than to push further.

“I trust you have no objection to us interviewing Major Miller and Miss Summers? We have some follow-up questions we’d like to ask them.”

Finn shrugged.

“From what I hear about you, I doubt any objections on my part would stop you, Agent Gibbs. But I imagine Dawn already told you everything she can. I doubt Graham has much to add other than how cranky Dawn gets when she’s injured.”  
He hesitated, then, almost as if against his better judgment, he added, “Gibbs? Be careful with Dawn. She has connections independent of this unit that go a lot higher than you might expect.”

“Yeah?” Gibbs asked, his tone making it clear that this had better not be a threat.

Finn sighed.

“Let’s just say that if you upset her, or worse, put her at risk in any way, even unintentionally, SecNav will be the least of your worries.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Gibbs said drily. “I know you’re a busy man, Colonel, so I won’t take up any more of your valuable time.”

\---

“Hank Summers is not my father,” Buffy said slowly, as if the knowledge were a book that she was having to fight to pull off an overcrowded shelf.

“Ok,” Willow said slowly. “So who is?”

Buffy shook her head, her face puzzled.

“I’m not sure. Like you warned, it’s not like flipping a switch. It only came to me because I was thinking of mom saying my father hadn’t seen me in a while, and I was wondering why she thought that was a big deal. And then I remembered my dad's face and realized that Hank was not my dad. I haven’t seen my dad for a really long time. He went away.”

“As in he left you and your mother?” Giles asked, plainly trying to elicit more information.

Buffy chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“No, I don’t think that was it. And I don’t think he wanted to go. He had to go… it wasn’t his call.”

“Like someone whose job takes them away from home. A pilot, maybe, or a soldier,” Xander suggested.

Buffy’s face lit up.

“A Marine,” she said decisively. “Dad’s a Marine. He was deployed. My grandmother used to yell at him every time he was sent overseas. Sometimes their fights scared me. She told him once that one day, he wouldn’t come back, and what would that do to us?”

She stopped abruptly.

“Maybe this was the time he didn't come back. But I don’t know what happened. Did he get killed while he was deployed? Did something else happen? He would never have just left us.There has to be more.”

To everyone’s surprise, it was Faith who answered.

“Yo, B, if your mom was the one who gave you the heads up about needing to open the closet door, why not ask her what you’re supposed to do now that it’s open?”

Buffy blinked.

“You mean take a nap and see if I have another dream about it?”

Faith nodded.

“Sure. Maybe now the closet’s open and mom can tell you more. She’s the one who made you aware of the problem, and it sounds like she was hoping you could fix it yourself. But it wasn’t working out like she thought, Slayer alone couldn’t do it. Now that Red gave you an assist with the mojo…”

Buffy shrugged. Considered that way, it made sense. Her mom had seemed willing to try whatever it took to get the door open. Now it should be.

“Why not?”

\---

Abby stared at her computer screen in disbelief. There was no way this could be right. It was just too weird. It couldn’t be. If it was, Gibbs would have said something, wouldn’t he?

She’d run the DNA twice, just to be sure. According to the evidence log, the hair she’d tested should belong to either Dawn Summers’ sister or mother, who had not been present at the crime scene. The hair had been in a locket Dawn was wearing, which her attacker had pulled off and from all appearances, deliberately smashed. Whoever had collected it had decided the hair most likely belonged to Buffy Summers, based on the photo and the color of the hair. But Abby had to test it just to make sure there were no unknown parties at the crime scene…

Abby froze at the sound of footsteps behind her. No, no, no! Not now! Bad timing!

“Gibbs!” she exclaimed, whirling around and doing her best to shield the computer screen from view.

“Got something for me, Abbs?” he asked, holding a Caf-Pow in one hand that was surely meant for her in the hopes that she had found something that would make their crazy crime scene make more sense.

“Um, sort of. Maybe. I mean…”

“What, Abby?” Gibbs asked patiently.

“Well, this is really awkward to have to ask, but you don’t have another daughter, do you, Gibbs?”

She did her best to smile, but she winced as she said it, knowing it was a sore subject. If he hadn’t appeared at that moment, she’d have strongarmed Tony or Ziva into asking. The look on Gibbs’ face worried her a little- if he hadn’t always treated her like a daughter, she might have been scared.

“Is there a reason you’re asking me this, Abbs?” he said, forcing himself to stay calm.

“IranthisevidencethroughDNA-“ she began, only to be cut off.

“ _Breathe_ , Abby,” Gibbs ordered, waiting until she did. “Start over- and go slower this time.”

“Ok, I took this evidence, which the label says should be hair belonging to Dawn Summers’ sister or mother, and extracted DNA samples for testing. Based on the photo, I’m fairly sure it’s the sister, not the mother. When I ran the DNA, I didn’t expect to get any matches back, because there’s no reason Dawn Summers’ sister should be in any databases, but I ran it anyway, just to be thorough, because you know how I’m always thorough. Except that I did get a match-a family match. To you.”

She looked at him expectantly, hoping he would say something that would make this somehow make sense.

“I only ever had one daughter, Abby,” Gibbs said hoarsely. “And she’s been in the ground for close to twenty years.”

Abby stared at him.

“And there’s no possibility-“

“None.” Gibbs said flatly.

“I don’t understand,” Abby whispered.

“Neither do I, Abbs. The more we dig into this case, the more questions it throws up. This one just hits a little closer to home.”

\---

“This just gets weirder and weirder,” McGee said. He had long since passed frowning at his computer screen. What he was doing now was more like glaring at it.

“What gets weirder, probalicious?” Tony asked, coming to lean over his shoulder. Ziva crowded in also.

“I hit a lot of dead ends doing background on Captain Miller, which isn’t too strange given that he’s involved in a highly classified special ops unit. So I started putting together background on Dawn Summers, which should have been easier. We have her details, and she didn’t seem at all worried about giving them.”

“So where’s the weird?” Tony asked.

“According to the state of California, Dawn Summers doesn’t exist. At least, she didn’t until she got her driver’s license in 2003. Before that, there’s nothing. No birth certificate, school records, not even a learner’s permit. It’s like she just appeared out of nowhere as a teenager.”

“So how did she get a driver’s license?” Ziva wanted to know. “I thought one had to show a birth certificate or passport as proof of identity to obtain a license?”

“I don’t know, maybe you can ask her about that when she comes in, which should be any time now,” McGee muttered. “She got the driver’s license, and not long after that, she was issued a US passport. But she doesn’t have a valid social security number, and there’s no record of her birth or adoption.”

“Perhaps she was born in another state,” Ziva suggested. “The family then moved to California.”

McGee shook his head.

“When I didn’t find anything in California, I widened my search. No Dawn Summers matching the one we talked to last night in any state.”

“That is strange,” Tony agreed.

“It gets weirder,” McGee told them. “I expanded my background search. I checked her sister and her mother, and ran into a similar problem. Neither of them show up before the early 90s, and records are hazy until they move to Sunnydale in 1997, at which point records are merely spotty due to losses in the Sunnydale disaster. The only official identity document for Buffy Summers-”

“Buffy?” Tony chortled.

Ziva smacked him in the back of the head, and he glared at her.

“It is not nice to mock people’s names, Junior,” she said tartly.

“As I was saying, the only official identity document for Buffy Summers is her passport, which is issued the same day as Dawn’s. She doesn’t have a driver’s license or a valid social, and there’s also no birth certificate or adoption record for her. There are no official identity documents in existence for Joyce Summers other than her death certificate and a driver’s license she obtained in 1991, which is noted as a replacement in the records, even though there was no prior license for her. She bought a house in Sunnydale in 1997, but I don’t even have an address for them prior to that. The ’91 license used a PO box.”  
Now Ziva was frowning as well. She had returned to her own computer and began punching keys.

“This makes no sense. Both girls are using false social security numbers. Buffy’s belongs to a pilot missing presumed dead in 1989, and Dawn’s to a boy who died the year she was supposedly born. How has no one ever noticed they are using someone else’s social?”

Tony frowned as he too looked through what McGee had dug up.

“Both women work outside the country for a foreign corporation,” he replied, “so their employer wouldn’t have requested their socials. If all they ever used them for was college applications or after school jobs as kids, chances are no one would catch it. Colleges use the number as a unique identifier for student records, but most never validate them. A lot of employers don’t bother either, especially with teenagers who only work part time. Neither one of the Summers sisters look like someone you’d expect to be using a fake number, and even after living in England for years, Dawn sounds as all-American as they come.”

“Well it gets better. I don’t have a marriage license for Joyce, or anything at all for her supposed husband. So I pulled the Summers girls’ passport applications. Both Buffy and Dawn list Hank Summers as their father, but I can’t find any Hank Summers, or even any male with the family name Summers born on the birth date they give for him. I thought maybe they got the birthdate wrong, so I tried searching place of birth instead and came up with nothing. There is no Hank Summers.”

“Witness protection program?” Tony suggested halfheartedly.

“Doubtful,” McGee replied, as Ziva shook her head in a decisive negative. “The complete lack of information about these people before a certain date just leads to questions. Usually if someone’s been moved into the program and given a new identity, that identity looks solid on paper. These ones are a collection of red flags. It’s like someone created identities for them, but whoever did it was a complete novice.”

“What’s going on, McGee?”

The three agents jumped slightly at Gibb’s sudden appearance, as well as his acerbic tone. Usually he came back from Abby’s lab in a better mood.

“I’ve been doing the background on Dawn Summers,” McGee began.

“Let’s hear it,” Gibbs barked.

“That’s the problem, boss,” McGee said, trying not to show nervousness. “There really isn’t any. Like I was just telling Tony and Ziva, it’s like she doesn’t exist until she’s a teenager. The first official documentation on her is her driver’s license, which she got three weeks after the Sunnydale disaster. No birth certificate and no social issued for her, no school or medical records anywhere. The rest of her family is just as much a mystery. She and her sister both applied for their passports the same day she got her driver’s license. Paper trail on the sister is sketchy at best while she’s in high school, and there’s nothing before 1991 on either sister or their mother.”

Gibbs froze.

“Say that last part again?”

“Before 1991, there’s absolutely nothing to show that Buffy, Joyce, or Dawn Summers existed.”

“And on that note, guess who just arrived?” Tony muttered.

Everyone’s heads swiveled toward the elevator doors, where Dawn Summers and Graham Miller had just walked in wearing visitor’s badges.

“McGee, you talk to Summers. Ziva, I want you observing. DiNozzo, you’ve got Miller.”


	7. The Girl Without A Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Tony tried not to glare at Major Miller, who had a hand on Dawn Summers’ back, and was murmuring something in her ear, no doubt something encouraging about how all she had to do was tell the investigators what she had seen last night and everything would be just fine.

Summers, for her part, looked far more put together than she had last night. She was dressed like a young professional, and looked far more poised and confident, albeit slightly tired. There was also a look in her eyes that Tony had seen before- always on girls who had seen too much. God, he hoped they’d find the bastard who had put that look there. He was looking forward to seeing Gibbs take him down.

“Miss Summers, Major Miller. Thank you for coming in. This way, please.”

He noticed that Miller gestured for Dawn to go in front of him, putting her in the most protected spot- not that there should be any trouble in NCIS. He showed Dawn to the conference room, and informed her that McGee would be with her momentarily for her interview. Then he led Miller down the corridor to where they’d be talking.  
It clearly didn’t escape Miller’s notice that he wasn’t in the polite interview room. It was an interrogation room.

“Do I need a lawyer, sir?” were Miller’s first words when he got a look at the room.

“I don’t know, do you?” DiNozzo replied. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t need one, right?”

Miller snorted.

“I’m not some dumb kid, Agent DiNozzo, so cut the act.”

Tony held up his hands.

“Not acting. I just have a few questions for you. Actually, make that one question. What really happened last night?”

He waited, but as he’d halfway expected, Miller said nothing. He didn’t even blink, although for a split second, Tony thought he saw the ghost of a smirk.

“We’re not dumb either, Major. You’re the one who’s in the top secret special ops unit. Your service record has a serious case of classified blackout, but it does admit that you’ve been in Sunnydale- the town Dawn Summers is from, the same town that fell into a huge sinkhole about nine years back. Nice looking girl, by the way. I can see why you’re attracted to her. And clearly this isn’t the first time you two have met, because those were her jeans you brought her last night. Brand new jeans don’t hug a girl’s ass as nicely as ones that have been worn in a bit.”

Miller’s jaw tensed ever so slightly, but he said nothing.

“Here’s the thing, Graham- can I call you Graham? You showed up at that warehouse last night almost before we did-and you claim you stopped to pick up clothes for your girlfriend. To get there that quick, you would have to have known about what was going on as fast as we did. Maybe even faster. Base MPs reported dead Marines to us only minutes after acting on an anonymous 911 call. So you can see where we still have some questions about what actually happened last night.”

Miller looked right at him, and Tony realized with a sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to get a damn thing out of the guy.

“I’d like to speak with my CO, sir. I need a JAG lawyer with the proper clearance before I can say anything else.”

Tony frowned at him.

“You might want to make yourself comfortable, then, Major. That could take a while.”

\---

Timothy McGee smiled as he sat down across from Dawn Summers. He’d halfway expected Gibbs to want to handle this himself, but apparently he wanted to just observe for now- or possibly alternate between observing this interview and the one Tony was conducting with Miller.

The only sign Summers wasn’t completely at ease was that she was toying with her necklace, an intricately worked Celtic cross.

“That’s beautiful,” he remarked as he set down the folders he’d brought with him.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

“Where did you get it?” he asked, looking to build even a slight rapport before starting in on the questions.

“Gift from a friend,” Dawn replied. “I’ve had it since I was twelve.”

“So that would be a little after you moved to Sunnydale, right?” McGee asked. She’d given him the opening, so he decided to go with her background instead of starting with the discrepancies in her account of what had happened last night.

“Yeah, I guess about ten months after we moved there, maybe a little bit longer,” Dawn replied.

“And that friend wasn’t Major Miller.”

“Graham? No. I didn’t really know him when we lived in Sunnydale, and definitely not when we first moved there. I only saw him in passing a couple times back then. My sister knew him, they were at UC Sunnydale at the same time, although I guess it was more a cover story in his case. Either way, I didn’t meet him until later.”

“You say it was a cover story. So you’re aware that Major Miller is involved in a covert unit.”

Dawn sighed.

“Agent McGee, you’re triggering my sarcasm reflex, and I have to warn you, it’s pretty hard to suppress. Yes, I’m aware. Known about that since Sunnydale, too.”

McGee frowned. That answer was unexpected.

“I thought Major Miller’s unit was undercover. Their existence is highly classified.”

Dawn shrugged.

“There were weird circumstances. Actually, I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it with you. I’m pretty sure I signed papers back in the day about not talking about it to anyone who isn’t supposed to know.”

Keeping a straight face for that was difficult, since Dawn couldn’t help remembering how unamused Riley had been when he discovered her thirteen year old self had been eavesdropping on conversations between Buffy and Giles (among others) and knew all about the Initiative.

“Actually, Miss Summers, the Major Case Response team are all cleared to handle classified material.”

Dawn shook her head.

“Sorry, I don’t actually know how classified works- it’s not something I deal with except for this one thing. So unless Riley tells me it’s ok to talk to you about it, I’d rather not. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. Or cause paperwork for Riley. He’s told me several times about how much paperwork he would have to do if I mess up. Something about killing an entire forest.”

McGee frowned, and shuffled his own papers.

“Right, well, I’ll clarify that situation with my boss and we’ll come back to it if it’s really necessary. Dawn, can you tell me where you lived before you moved to Sunnydale?”

“Before Sunnydale? L.A.”

“Tell me about L.A.,” McGee said.

Dawn looked slightly confused at the turn the conversation had taken.

“I don’t really remember that much about it outside our immediate neighborhood. It’s not like I was old enough to really be out and about on my own- we moved when I was eleven.”

“Right, that would be when your parents split up, and you moved with your mother and sister to Sunnydale. What about your father?”

“Hank?” Dawn snorted. “We had occasional visits for a couple years after the divorce, like every six months or so when he remembered and wasn’t too busy with work or girlfriends or whatever else he had going in his life. But that pretty much stopped by the time I hit high school. We’re not in contact anymore.”

Now it was Dawn’s turn to frown.

“Why all the questions about my childhood, Agent McGee? I thought I was here to talk about the attack on the Marine last night.”

“We’ll get to that, but first there’s something I have to clear up. When NCIS investigate a crime, it’s routine to check into the background of witnesses and victims. But when we tried to draw up a background for you, we got basically nothing. The only records we have for you are your driver’s license and passport.”

Dawn rolled her eyes.

“The collapse of Sunnydale is the gift that just keeps on giving,” she told him with a sigh. “We lost everything. Photos, birth certificates, the whole shebang. That’s why I was so upset about my locket. My sister, myself, and several of our friends were in the last group out, and we walked away with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Actually, as close as we cut it, some of us were lucky to still be able to walk. The only thing I had besides what I was wearing was my school ID.”

Dawn didn’t mention that the only reason she’d bothered carrying it that day was in case things didn’t work out and someone other than her sister or Willow needed to identify her body.

McGee leaned toward her.

“It’s a little more serious than that, Dawn,” he told her gently. “Even if your copy of your birth certificate was destroyed, the state of California should still have one on record for you. The problem is, they don’t.”

Confusion was plain on Dawn’s face.

“But… they must. They have to. How can they not? I’ve seen my birth certificate. I was born at White Memorial Medical Center, same as Buffy.”

“I don’t know, Dawn, but it’s not on record anywhere. How did you get your driver’s license without having to show your birth certificate or permit?”

Dawn was trying not to wring her hands.

“There was a special arrangement for Sunnydale disaster victims. Lots of people lost all sorts of important papers in the scramble to get out. At the disaster response center, there was a government services kiosk that was set up to process people for new identity documents, even if they’d lost all their previous documentation. You had to have witnesses who could attest to you being who you said you were, and they had to be able to find references to you being a Sunnydale resident. My sister owned our house on Revello Drive, and the principal of Sunnydale High and my homeroom teacher were our witnesses since they knew both of us. I did my road test and got my license, and we both filled out our passport applications.”

Dawn also omitted the fact that the hastily reconstituted remnants of the Council had made certain there would be no delay in new documentation for any Council personnel or dependents, which is what she’d officially been at that point. Really, once they’d regrouped in LA, it had been clear what all of them needed most were passports. They’d relocated to England to organize the new Council at the end of the summer.

Dawn shook her head.

“Seriously, how can California not have my birth certificate?”

“Actually, they don’t have your sister’s, either,” McGee told her. “And we can’t find school enrollment for you prior to Sunnydale, or your sister prior to her year at Hemery. Is it possible your mother reverted to her maiden name when your parents got divorced- maybe unofficially? If she started listing you as Summers when your father’s name was something else, that would explain the problem we’ve been having.”

Dawn looked at McGee in bewilderment.

“No. Our dad’s name is definitely Summers, same as ours. I wasn’t that young when the divorce went through that I wouldn’t know my name. I don’t believe this. How did no one notice before that there were no birth certificates on record for us?”

McGee shrugged.

“We’re as in the dark as you are, Dawn. I was hoping you’d be able to clear it up. But you’re sure you were born at White Memorial?”

“That’s what it said on the one in Mom’s desk,” Dawn replied. “Buffy was born there, too. Do you want me to call her? She probably knows more, she was already in high school when we moved.”

“That’s ok. You just sit tight for now, I’m going to go check with the hospital records and see if we can clear this up. Maybe your birth certificates were filed incorrectly. Typos and other paperwork mistakes do happen. This might just all be a big mixup.”

\---

Down in the bullpen, where they’d been observing both interviews over camera feeds, Gibbs turned to Ziva.

“She is genuinely surprised and distressed by the news that her documentation is not there,” Ziva said, looking puzzled. “She was not aware of it. It would be highly unusual for an agent to not be aware of their backstopping. If I were an agent in her position, I would have verified it myself before the start of the mission.”

Unspoken was that Ziva would never have accepted such a shoddy background. She’d already been clear earlier on how dangerous such a dubious history would be for an agent.

“But you also don’t think it was a paperwork mixup,” Gibbs said.

“No,” Ziva said firmly. “Even if one girl’s birth record was misfiled, both of them? As well as their mother’s missing documents? And the mysterious father we can find no trace of? That is too many coincidences.”

Seeing Gibbs’ face, she frowned.

“You don’t believe it was a paperwork mixup either.”

Gibbs shook his head.

“I don’t know what it was,” he replied. “But I’ll be surprised if McGee finds anything to support her belief that she and her sister were born at White Memorial. Besides, you know rule 39.”

“There is no such thing as a coincidence,” Ziva recited with a nod.

He continued to gaze at Dawn Summers, as though he could work out just what had happened from her worried face. She was doing something on her phone, but the camera angle wasn’t right for them to see what.  
Gibbs’ phone rang. He ignored it. Ziva’s rang next.

“Yes. Yes, he is here. Yes, I will tell him.”

She hung the phone up.

“That was Abby. She says you need to come down to the lab right now.”

\---

Left alone in the interview room, Dawn pulled out her phone. She was surprised to see it wasn’t jammed. She would have expected NCIS to block outsiders’ cell phones within their facility.

Seeing as it wasn’t, she tapped out a quick text.

_NCIS says I have no birth certificate- and Buffy doesn’t either. What’s going on??_

She checked off the ‘Buffy’, ‘Giles’, ‘Willow’, ‘Xander’, ‘Faith’, and ‘Riley’ boxes, and hit send. Hopefully that would give everyone who might need to know a heads up.

Her not having a birth certificate made sense in a way. The monks had been able to create memories and work her into the reality of Sunnydale, but they hadn’t bothered with the wider world. Hell, she was pretty sure Hank Summers, wherever he was, had no idea he had a second daughter. From what they could figure out post-Sunnydale, she was only supposed to have been a temporary solution. But Buffy dying in her place had thrown quite the kink into that plan.

They’d never realized before that the copy of her birth certificate in Joyce Summers’ papers was the only one, and thanks to the Sunnydale Disaster Response Commission, she’d gotten her license and passport without needing to show it. Without this incident, she might have gone her entire life without finding out.

But Buffy not having a birth certificate was weird. Up until she’d been Called, Buffy had been a normal girl. She should have had a birth certificate, and elementary school enrollment records, and all the other stuff Agent McGee was saying wasn’t there.

Something strange was going on. She just hoped it wasn’t the beginning of something big.

\---

Buffy had found it difficult to drop off to sleep, especially since it was still early in the day even for a nap, but years of mental discipline had taught her how to empty her mind and grab sleep when it was necessary. She’d eventually managed to nod off.

This time, to her surprise, she started outside the house. For the first time, she could see clearly that this wasn’t Revello Drive. It was similar, but not the Summers home. The yard was different, and so was the color. Also, it didn’t feel like southern California. She’d spent enough of her life there to know.

The front door wasn’t locked, so she went inside.

Her room was upstairs, exactly where it should have been, but there was no room for Dawn. Where Dawn’s room should have been was a room that looked like it did double duty as a spare room and somebody’s project room. The projects weren’t anything she’d ever seen her mother working on, though.

The house didn’t flicker this time, either. Now that Willow had broken the old spell, the house seemed to know what it was supposed to look like- or maybe it was that she knew what it was supposed to look like.

She stopped short when she walked into her room. The closet door was open- in fact, it looked like it had almost exploded outward. Looking at the avalanche of stuff that had come spilling out, covering most of the floor, Buffy found it hard to believe that it had all fit in there, much less that it had been so difficult to open with so much pressing on the door from the inside.

She stopped to pick up the closest thing to the door, and found a photo of a little girl she suddenly recognized.  
“Maddie,” she whispered, surprised to have a name to put with the face. Until today, she wouldn’t have known her. Now she did, but it was like she was remembering something from somebody else’s life. This girl had been her best friend until she moved.

“Finally,” her mother said, coming up behind her. “You need to have everything squared away before you see your father. You’re not ready yet.”

“Mom, I don’t understand,” Buffy said, turning to look the woman full in the face- and abruptly getting dizzy.  
She had two sets of memories at war with each other in her head- one set telling her this woman was her mother, and another that was shrieking protest at the insult to Joyce. She closed her eyes, fighting the urge to puke.

Her mother eased her on to the bed, making soothing sounds.

“It’ll pass soon, baby. Just breathe, it will pass.”

Buffy waited until the feeling of nausea and her fighting her own self had eased before she opened her eyes cautiously and tried to speak again.

“Your name is Shannon. Dad called you that in the first dream I had.”

Her mother’s face had brightened, but fell slightly as she understood that Buffy had only remembered that from her dream, not from her actual memories.

“He called for Kelly, too,” Buffy continued. “Was that my name?”

Shannon nodded, her expression dimming still further at Buffy’s use of the past tense.

“Kelly Ann. Kelly because we liked it, Ann for your dad’s mother.”

Her mother gestured at a photo on the floor, but this one wasn’t like the others- it was black and white and slightly blurry- but also framed.

“Did I know her?” Buffy asked, puzzled.

Her mother shook her head.

“She died when Daddy was still a boy.”

So that was where Anne had come from. Buffy had wondered about that. Mom- meaning Joyce- had explained Buffy, but never Anne. She wondered why her first name had been changed, but the middle one left the same. But that wasn’t really the important question here…

“Mom, what happened? How did I end up with another family? Who did this to us?”

Because it had been done to both of them, Buffy knew. Some instinct told her that this was more than just a memory of her mother. This woman was as dead as Joyce.

Her mother hugged her fiercely.

“I don’t know, baby. If I’d known, I would have protected you. I would never have let anyone hurt you or Daddy.”

“I know, but someone did. Why didn’t Daddy stop them?”

That much had come back about her father. She had been her daddy’s princess, and he would have ended anyone who tried to harm her. Her father’s protectiveness had been mostly an abstract to a nine year old, but grown up Buffy was pretty sure his version of protecting his family went every bit as far as her own. She had once told her closest friends she would kill anyone who came near her sister, and she’d meant it, even if it meant the end of the world or the death of a friend. That hadn’t been just the Slayer speaking. That kind of fierce didn’t come out of nowhere.

“Baby, he wasn’t there.”

Her mother looked so sad.

“He was deployed,” Buffy said. “I remember that much. Where was he, Mom? We needed him!”


	8. Girl, Resurrected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

“What’s so important, Abbs?” Gibbs asked as he entered the lab. “I’ve got Dawn Summers upstairs right now.”

“You need to see this Gibbs,” Abby replied. “Like, right now. Especially if you have Dawn Summers upstairs. Ok, so you remember how it didn’t make any sense that Dawn’s sister could be your daughter? Before I ran Dawn’s DNA, I went back and tested Buffy against what’s on record for your daughter. Gibbs, Buffy Summers isn’t just your daughter. She’s a perfect match to Kelly.”

She pointed to the results. Gibbs stared at the screen, uncomprehending.

“You’re saying-“

“Buffy Summers and Kelly Gibbs are the same person,” Abby told him. “DNA doesn’t lie. Gibbs, your daughter isn’t dead. She never was. Kelly is alive.”

“That’s not possible. The investigation determined that Kelly and Shannon died in that car, Abby,” he whispered.

He couldn’t allow himself to believe it was possible. There was just no way it could be, and he _knew_ he wasn’t strong enough to survive losing Kelly a second time.

“Then the conclusion the investigation came to was wrong,” Abby replied. “Look at this-they used dental records for the identification on Shannon, but identifying remains from dental records can be problematic- especially with children, who often don’t have up to date records, because they’re still growing and their teeth are changing so rapidly. Kelly had gone nearly a year since her last dentist visit, so the investigation relied on the combination of known location, blood type, and general appearance. The dead girl looked like Kelly, had the same blood type, and Kelly was known to have been in the vehicle.”

Abby refrained from pointing out that the dead girl had also suffered facial injuries that would have made misidentification more likely.

“But it wasn’t Kelly?” Gibbs demanded.

Abby shook her head.

“They didn’t do DNA testing. Back then, it was far more expensive, and testing wasn’t routine. As far as the investigators were concerned, it wasn’t necessary in Kelly’s case. They had no reason to suspect the girl in the vehicle was anyone else. I went back to the evidence for that case and managed to find a sample I could still get DNA from. I don’t know who that little girl was, but she was definitely not your daughter. Completely unrelated to you or your wife. Someone switched children.”

“Who would do that?” Gibbs asked hoarsely. “And how would they get Kelly not to contact me? If she were in trouble, the first thing she would do is try to tell me.”

Abby looked flummoxed.

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask Dawn Summers about her sister.”

Gibbs felt like the world was spinning backwards.

“Abby, I doubt she knows anything about it. She’s younger than Kelly- she would have only been five or six when the accident happened.”

Abby’s eyes widened.

“Gibbs? If Buffy Summers is really Kelly, could Dawn Summers also be someone else?”

“I don’t know, Abbs. But you’re going to find out. Go ahead and run her DNA right now- check it against Kelly’s first. Then against every database we’ve got. Start with missing and abducted children.”

Abby did her best mock salute as he headed for the elevator.

When Gibbs got back upstairs, he intercepted McGee, who was looking troubled as he headed back to the interview room.

“Boss, I just got off the phone with White Memorial, the L.A. hospital Dawn Summers claims as her birthplace? They have no record of Buffy or Dawn Summers’ birth. In fact, they don’t have records of anyone named Summers being admitted during the time periods we’re looking at.”

“McGee, when you go back in, ask Summers more about her sister.”

“Ok… can I ask why, boss?”

“Her sister’s DNA popped up in connection to an old case.”

“Suspect?”

“Victim.”

McGee looked startled, but nodded.

“Boss, what-“

“Possible child abduction- _don’t_ tell Summers that.”

McGee’s eyes bugged out as he absorbed what Gibbs had just said.

“Understood. Um, boss?”

Gibbs pinned him with that pained look of impatience that usually went with a ‘what, McGee?’ but didn’t say anything.

“Do we think Summers is also abducted? It would explain a few things.”

“We don’t know yet, McGee. Abby’s running her DNA right now. Try to keep her here as long as you can- I’m hoping Abby will finish before Summers leaves.”

Privately, Gibbs expected Abby to come up with a match- which would give them more excuse to delve into Summers’ background. Of course, there would also be the minor problem of contacting a set of parents who had probably been told long ago that there was no realistic hope of getting their child back alive. That was a phone call he planned to make himself.

McGee took a deep breath and cleared his expression before letting himself back into the interview room. He found Dawn fidgeting restlessly, phone in hand.

“Agent McGee, how much longer do you think this will take?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” McGee replied. “Why?”

“I have a one o’clock appointment that I absolutely have to keep,” Dawn replied. “The way this has been dragging out, I’m starting to get a little nervous.”

“You can’t reschedule?” McGee asked, mentally calculating whether it was worse to upset Summers by making her miss her appointment, or Gibbs by letting Summers leave when he’d said to keep her here as long as possible.

“Not within the next six months,” Dawn told him, her face serious. “Setting up this appointment took several weeks and a metric buttload of paperwork. I realize what you’re doing here is important, but so is this appointment.”

“What’s so important?” McGee asked curiously. “If you don’t mind me asking. Nothing to do with the investigation, just personal curiosity. I’ve never met an antiquities appraiser before.”

Dawn was relieved to finally have a question she could answer with near complete honesty. She was starting to suspect it might be the only question like it she’d get.

“Comparing an item that recently was acquired for one of our collections against specimens in the Smithsonian’s Akkadian holdings. If our new piece is genuine, it is worth more than this building and everything in it. Getting my schedule, an archaeologist with the appropriate background, the historian I need to talk to, and the artifacts I need to see for comparison to all line up in one place was not easy. If I cancel on such short notice, the chance that these people will free up more time in their busy schedules for me anytime soon is not good.”

McGee decided with a sinking feeling that it was going to have to be Gibbs who got upset. He might not be involved in academia or antiquities, but he understood what Summers meant- if she backed out, her next request for an appointment with the people she needed became low priority. It could take months to get her appointment rescheduled, maybe longer.

“Would it be possible for you to come back again tomorrow?” McGee asked. “Clearly, you need to keep your appointment, but we still have a few more questions for you, and I don’t want to rush and miss something. With cases like this, sometimes it’s the smallest details that turn out to be what unravels the case.”

“Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Dawn replied, tapping on her phone screen to pull up her calendar. “Everything I have scheduled for tomorrow can be rearranged. This afternoon is the only thing that can’t.”

“Great. Anyway, sorry I kept you waiting for so long. It turned out to be longer than I expected.”

At Dawn’s puzzled look, McGee did his best exasperated face.

“I got put on hold for quite a while. I think they may have forgotten I was still holding. I ended up hanging up and calling back.”

“I hate it when that happens,” Dawn said sympathetically. “So, did the birth certificate thing get sorted out?”

“Not exactly, but I’m hopeful we’ll be able to clear it up by the end of the day,” McGee told her. “I did want to ask you a couple more questions about your sister, though.”

Dawn frowned.

“Agent McGee, not that I don’t want to help any way I can, but why the focus on my sister? Buffy’s in England. She had nothing to do with what happened last night. She hasn’t even been back to the States in three years.”

“England? Really? Where?”

“A small town you won’t have heard of not far from Cheltenham.”

At McGee’s blank look, Dawn sighed.

“Cheltenham’s about halfway between Bristol and Birmingham. You don’t know where those are either? Southwest England. About two hours and change by train from London Paddington. Or by car, it’s about the same either way.”

“And how long has she been there?” McGee asked.

Dawn shrugged.

“Not counting vacations or work assignments that take her elsewhere? Pretty much since we moved to England after Sunnydale. There was a temporary stay in LA, but we weren’t there long, maybe a couple months. We were in London for the first few weeks after we moved to England while the British paperwork got sorted out-“

McGee broke in.

“Sorry to interrupt, Dawn, but what paperwork? Given the difficulty we’ve been having, if there’s a paper trail on you in England, it might actually be easier for me to follow up there and work backward.”

Dawn thought for a second.

“Um, there would be whatever we had to do for our immigration status, for a start. I was still underage, so I didn’t really see the papers, my sister handled everything since she was my guardian. Giles sponsored us both for permanent residency in the UK, so there’s got to be some papers for that. And I think he and Buffy also set up the paperwork so he’d become my guardian under British law if anything happened to her before I hit legal age. We got national insurance numbers so Buffy could start work, and Giles pulled some strings to get me into his old school so I could finish high school.”

She couldn’t very well tell him that it was unlikely he’d find much paperwork available to him from the British authorities- the files of senior Council personnel were considered need to know, and unless NCIS was way higher in the pecking order than she suspected, they didn’t. Anything Her Majesty’s Government handed over would be sanitized.

“And that was all in London?”

Dawn nodded. Maybe she should check what her public CV and immigrations history actually said. She’d never needed to bother before.

“London for a few weeks, and then we moved to Winchcombe and we’ve been based there ever since.”

She frowned, and her eyes narrowed.

“Agent McGee, you never answered my question. Why the interest in my sister?”

McGee sighed.

“Dawn, I don’t want to worry you, but we have reason to think she may be involved in an old NCIS investigation.”

“That doesn’t sound right. Other than Riley and Graham, we’ve never known anyone in the military. So how would she be connected to an NCIS investigation? Buffy’s not some kind of criminal.”

Dawn looked alarmed, so he hastened to reassure her.

“Not as a suspect, of course! I apologize if I gave you that impression. Her DNA matched something on file from an old case that’s still unsolved. It’s probably nothing, but I have to follow up on it.”

Dawn still looked uneasy, and McGee couldn’t honestly blame her.

“You said Buffy’s not a criminal, but I noticed in what little we could find on her that she got expelled from her high school in Los Angeles for burning down the gym. What can you tell me about that?”

Dawn slumped slightly in her chair.

“Everyone always brings up the gym. Cause of course she couldn’t come up with a better excuse than ‘mice smoking cigarettes’. Look, that was around the time our parents’ marriage was breaking up. They were fighting constantly. Buffy acted out a bit, but it wasn’t anything that should follow her around all her life. It’s not like she wanted to burn the gym down. She was hanging out with some kids who were smoking, and they blamed her for the fire.”

“Did anyone else get expelled for that incident?” McGee asked, making a note.

Dawn shook her head.

“No, the others were skilled enough at juvenile delinquency to not get caught doing stupid stuff as often as Buffy did. The gym fire was her last strike. To hear our sperm donor tell it, it was also the last straw for Mom’s marriage. He was tired of us dragging him down.”

“That’s pretty harsh,” McGee said, honestly taken aback. “Was your sister aware of your father’s feelings?”

“I’m going to go with yes, considering how loud he was when he told Mom that night,” Dawn replied coolly. “In fact, I’d say the whole neighborhood heard. Hank’s out of our lives for a reason. He didn’t even return Buffy’s calls when Mom died. Haven’t seen him in years, and haven’t really missed him either.”

“Right, well that more than covers the high school incident. What can you tell me about your sister’s activities in 1991?” McGee asked.

“1991?” Dawn asked, now looking completely baffled. “Not much. That’s when life was still… normal. Buffy would have been ten, so that would be what fourth grade, maybe fifth for her? She would have been at Franklin Avenue, and I think she was taking ice skating lessons. Not sure if she’d gotten into cheerleading yet or not. I really can’t tell you more than that. I was only four going on five. Most of what I remember from that time centers around pre-school and the pool in our backyard.”

Of course, those memories were all fake, but there was no need to tell Agent McGee that.

“Interesting that you refer to it as when life was still normal,” McGee remarked.

“Yeah, well, what else can you call it when your parents get divorced and your mom decides it would be a good idea to move you to a town that has a crime problem to rival bad parts of New York, your mom dies suddenly, and then said town collapses into a sinkhole half a mile deep taking all your stuff with it, and almost takes you, too. There’s normal, there’s the pre-divorce period, there’s Sunnydale, and there’s England. Pretty much nothing from pre-divorce on qualifies as normal, at least, not from what I’ve heard from people with normal lives.”

“But you definitely remember Buffy growing up with you and your parents?”

Dawn’s look and tone both suggested she thought he was slightly crazy.

“Yeah, what with her being my sister and all.”

“Ok. We’ll leave it at that. Again, Miss Summers, please don’t worry. It’s probably nothing.”

Dawn looked pointedly at her watch.

“Right, I guess we’ll have to pick up again tomorrow morning. You should have time for lunch and still make your appointment at the Smithsonian.”

“Great,” Dawn said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “And tomorrow we’ll be talking more about what happened last night instead of what happened during my wonderful childhood?”

“I would imagine so,” McGee replied. “Thank you for your time, Miss Summers. It might not seem like it, but this really is a big help.”

He showed her to the door, where they found Graham Miller waiting along with DiNozzo.

“Agent DiNozzo,” Summers said, in a voice that was still slightly strained.

“Everything ok, Dawn?” Miller asked, in a voice that made it clear that if it wasn’t, he was going to be very unhappy with McGee and DiNozzo.

“Tell you in the car,” Dawn replied. “We need to grab food and get to Natural History. If I miss this meeting, there will be hell to pay. Possibly literally.”

\---

With Summers and Miller safely in the elevator, McGee looked expectantly at DiNozzo.

“Well? Did Miller have an explanation for you?”

“Yeah, probie, he did,” DiNozzo snapped. “Along with his CO and a JAG lawyer.”

McGee looked at Ziva and Gibbs in confusion.

“Summers told DiNozzo last night she’d been tortured before,” Gibbs said. “Turns out that was during a kidnapping when she was a teenager. A doomsday cult decided she was the human sacrifice they needed to transcend this plane of existence or some crazy crap. There was another scare while she was in college, too, a survivor of the original cult. Summers is mostly ok about it these days, but she and everyone around her is very security conscious. To the point that when she’s on assignment in unfamiliar surroundings, she checks in with a designated contact person by phone or text message every 45 minutes.”

McGee noted that it sounded like Gibbs approved. He reflected privately that it might be a good thing Gibbs had never had children with any of his ex-wives. He had visions of them never being let out of the house without GPS locators.

“She tells whoever she checks in with where she is, what she’s doing, and lets them know if she expects to be sleeping or unavailable for any other reason. If she misses a check-in, they call to find out why,” DiNozzo continued. “When she missed her expected check-in last night, Colonel Finn gave her a short grace period and then began calling. When he received no answer for half an hour, he had Dawn’s cell phone traced from his office.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” McGee asked.

“Well, technically, yes, McGoo,” DiNozzo replied. “But given that Summers made him her Washington check-in person because he could do that if he decided it was necessary, she’s not about to file a complaint. And since his actions led to the rescue of a kidnapping victim and the discovery of a multiple homicide involving military personnel, I don’t think the Pentagon is going to take issue with it either.”

“But he brought a lawyer with him anyway,” McGee said.

“Much like the Boy Scouts, Colonel Finn believes in being prepared,” DiNozzo snapped. “What about your interview, probie? What did our damsel no longer in distress tell you about last night?”

“We didn’t get to last night, because I was asking about her background, and that led to questions about her sister,” McGee replied.

“Her sister? I’m so proud of you, probie! Buffy, right? Did you get to see pictures? Is she hot?” DiNozzo asked gleefully, before wincing as Gibbs landed a solid smack on the back of his head.

“I told him to ask about her sister, DiNozzo,” Gibbs snapped. “Buffy Summers’ DNA matches the DNA on file for a crime victim from an old case.”

“Which case, boss?” DiNozzo asked.

Gibbs tossed a file on Ziva’s desk. McGee and DiNozzo crowded around to see it.

“Boss…” McGee said slowly, not sure he was understanding. “This is the file from-“

“From the investigation of my wife and daughter’s death,” Gibbs cut him off. “Yeah, McGee, I know.”

DiNozzo got the look on his face normally reserved for the moment he realized Gibbs was right behind him, and then slapped his own head at the realization he’d just unknowingly applied the word ‘hot’ to Gibbs’ daughter.

“Sorry, boss. Won’t happen again,” he said meekly.

“Then Miss Summer’s sister,” Ziva began.

“Abby tells me Buffy Summers’ DNA is a 100% match to Kelly’s,” Gibbs said, sparing her the question.

“Does Dawn know this?” Ziva asked quietly.

McGee shook his head.

“She has no idea. According to her, in 1991, Buffy was in elementary school and taking ice skating lessons.”

“I know, McGee, I was watching.”

“What do I tell her?”

“Don’t tell her anything for now. But I want to know where Buffy Summers is now and I want her complete history.”

“Right. Dawn said they live in England, a small town near Cheltenham. I’ll start with that.”

“And Dawn Summers?” DiNozzo asked.

“Abby’s running DNA on her to see if she’s also a missing child.”

“You think the parents abducted both of them, boss? Or at least, the mother did? Might explain why their supposed father split and hasn’t been heard from since…”

“I think if someone’s passing off one kidnapped child as their own, DiNozzo, it’s fair to ask if their other child is also abducted.”

“Good point,” DiNozzo agreed.

“DiNozzo, even though we’re digging into Summers, we can’t let the multiple homicide drop. Get back down to Quantico and see what you can find out about that warehouse. I find it hard to believe no one noticed anything. See if you can find surveillance cameras that might have video, or someone who saw people coming or going in the last few weeks.”

“On it, boss.”

“And me?” Ziva asked. “What do I do?”

“Follow Summers,” Gibbs replied.

“You do not trust her?” Ziva said in surprise.

“It’s not that I don’t trust her,” Gibbs replied. “But there’s something funny going on, and there’s a decent chance Dawn may also be an abducted child. Until we get to the bottom of this, I want to know where she is. Besides, you know rule 3.”

Ziva nodded.

“Don’t believe what you’re told, double check. If I follow her, we may find out if she is actually what she says she is.”


	9. Objects in the Rearview Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Dawn waited until the Navy Yard was a vanishing speck in the mirror before she turned to Graham.

“Can I borrow your phone again?” she asked.

“I’ve got something better for you,” Graham replied, handing her a package. “New phone with a secure line and a number NCIS doesn’t have. They want to know anything about this baby, they’ll need a FISA warrant- and if anyone requests one, it’ll flag Riley over at Pentagon.”

“How did you get this? I thought you were here at the Navy Yard the whole time!” Dawn protested.

“Riley stopped by with a JAG lawyer from our unit,” Graham replied. “NCIS was mighty curious to know how I got there so quick last night. Don’t worry, Riley told them because of your prior hostage experience when you were a teenager, we all go a little overboard when it comes to your safety. He may have thrown in that incident in Oxford, too. But since he was coming anyway, he brought this with him.”

“Awesome,” Dawn replied, punching numbers as she spoke.

As usual, a Council rep picked up on the first ring. This time Dawn recognized the voice.

“Mona? Hi, Dawn. Yeah, it’s a new phone. No, don’t update the board. It’s restricted- only hand it to senior personnel until Buffy or I tell you otherwise. Yes, please, if she’s around. Uh oh.”  
At her ‘uh-oh’, Graham shot her a concerned glance.

“Ok. Well, can you risk disturbing them? It’s important. I’m not exactly freaking out here, but I’m heading towards freakville by way of ‘well that’s not good’.”

She covered the phone.

“Buffy, Willow, Xander, Faith and Giles have been in conference all day. They’re not taking non-emergency calls. No one knows what it’s about, and people are getting a little nervous.”

Graham’s eyes widened. Hearing that Summers and Lehane were both in one place and weren’t taking anything but emergency calls might not be a sign of an apocalypse, but as Dawn would put it, it wasn’t of the good.

“Is it related to what went down here, or something else going on?”

Dawn shrugged as she listened to the other end of the conversation.

Unlike Graham, she knew her sister had something interesting and hopefully non world endy on her mind. Not to mention, the last time Faith and Buffy had hunkered down and made all of Slayer Central nervous, it turned out that Andrew had persuaded them to try Final Fantasy. The pair had been synchronized swearing at the final boss by the time the nervousness hit a crescendo and someone checked on them. She wasn’t worried yet. If there was an apocalypse on, someone would have called.

“Yeah. Ok, Mona, just tell them I’m heading to my one o’clock as soon as I grab lunch, but I’m not happy with how things went at NCIS this morning. I’ll call when I get back to Graham’s. And if they need me for anything Council related, make sure they use this line. I’m not sure if the other one is being monitored. Yeah, thanks, you too. Talk to you later.”

Dawn hung up.

“I’ll call them this evening from your place. Maybe I’ll get the rundown then.”

Graham nodded.

“You should probably keep using your original phone for non-work related stuff. If NCIS are monitoring your calls, and I expect they will from what they said while they were talking to me, it’ll look weird if you suddenly stop using it.”

“Were they ok with Riley’s explanation?” Dawn wanted to know.

Graham made a face.

“Probably not, but they made it sound like they were. My read on the situation is they know we’re holding out on them. What were they asking you?”

“Really weird stuff,” Dawn replied. “They wanted to know why Buffy and I don’t have birth certificates, which was news to me, and they asked a bunch of stuff about when Buffy was younger. I’m not sure why, the agent said something about her being tied to a previous investigation, but not as a suspect.”

“When were they asking about?” Graham asked, suddenly alert. He remembered the frustration in Initiative circles at the solid dead end they’d hit trying to dig up information on Buffy Summers. The theory back then had been that the Council was protecting the Slayer, but if Dawn didn’t know about it, there might well be more to it.

“He asked specifically about 1991, wanted to know what I could tell him about what Buffy was doing, and if I remembered her being around before that. It was strange.”

Dawn couldn’t tell him that part of the reason she found it so unsettling was because none of her memories from that time were real. Buffy had never told Riley about the Key, and everyone left alive who did know- Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, and Spike- had agreed that it was probably best if that information stayed buried.

It had been years before they told Faith the full story, and that had been Dawn’s decision. Buffy had agreed that at 21, Dawn was old enough to understand fully what telling others meant. Although Faith had initially been hurt about being frozen out, once she understood the full implications, she completely backed Buffy and Giles’ feeling that the fewer people who knew, the safer it was for everyone. Graham had no idea.

“And he wouldn’t tell you what investigation it was connected to?”

Dawn shook her head.

“I don’t even know how they latched onto Buffy in the first place. It’s not like she was here. She hasn’t even been in country since the Cleveland Hellmouth was sealed.”

Buffy and Faith were usually reserved for Hellmouth troubleshooting and apocalypse duty these days. With Cleveland finally out of business, if Buffy crossed the Atlantic, she was more likely to be heading to one of Mexico’s twin Hellmouths.

“Your locket,” Graham said quietly. “It had hair. Yours, your sister’s, and your mother’s. If they found it, and got DNA from it, they would check to see if the DNA matched anything already on file.”

“I thought you had to have hair with the root still attached to do that,” Dawn protested. “It’s not like we ripped those hairs out of our scalp.”

“They’d only need to find one or two with the root still attached,” Graham replied. “And who knows, I’m not up on the latest in forensic DNA methods. Maybe they don’t even need that anymore. But I can’t think why they would be asking about her childhood, unless…”

He stopped, frowning.

“Unless what?” Dawn demanded. “No holding out on me, Marine!”

“Unless the match came from a kidnapping case,” Graham said quietly. “A missing child. Why else would they care what she was doing twenty years ago?”

Dawn looked at him blankly.

“That’s ridiculous. Buffy can’t be a missing child. I mean, hello, who kidnaps two children? How can they even think that?”

She stopped abruptly, not liking the answer that had just popped into her head. Unlike Graham, she knew there would have been only one kidnapped child. And that child had been a Potential. She had the sudden, sinking feeling that this could get all kinds of awkward.

Graham shrugged.

“I don’t know. But it’s the only thing I can think of that fits what they were asking.”

\---

Buffy’s mother looked like she was ready to cry. Buffy, feeling guilty that she’d made her mom upset, took her hand. It was cool, not warm. Like Joyce’s body, part of her memory whispered.

“He was deployed, baby, do you remember?”

Buffy chewed her lip. She did remember, but only in a hazy way.

“He was a Marine. It wasn’t the first time he deployed. He’d gone before. We visited Mom-mom and Pop-pop. Mom-mom yelled at him before we left, just like she always did. Daddy got mad and asked her why she had to do this in front of me. I wasn’t scared, though. I was upset at Mom-mom. Is this the time he didn’t come back?”

Her mother shook her head.

“He came back, baby, but we were gone. Do you remember anything else?”

Buffy shrugged. She knew there was more, but it was like looking through a kaleidoscope- it kept shifting and whirling and the patterns didn’t always make sense. She remembered begging her dad not to go. That always happened whenever he deployed, too.

“We moved. It happened really fast. Our house was rented out, and we followed Daddy to California…”  
So that’s when she’d moved to California. Most of the new stuff swirling around her head felt like it had an East Coast vibe to her. But they hadn’t lived in LA, not then.

“We were living on base. I remember I started school there in September. There were a bunch of us who were new, our dads had all deployed. There was something big going on… it must have been Desert Storm. The teachers were all really nice to us. And then… you saw something bad happen?”  
Her mother nodded.

“That’s right, baby. I saw something bad happen. I told NIS I would testify in court about it.”  
Buffy tried not to let it irritate her that her mother was still talking to her like she was a child. She wasn’t about to say anything, though. She wasn’t sure if this was actually her mother talking, or whether it was just her memory coming back.

“We had a protection officer,” Buffy remembered. “You talked to me about him, so I would understand why he was going everywhere with us. He was supposed to watch you until the bad guy went to jail.”

“That’s right,” her mother said. “He was making sure I was safe until the trial.”

“There was a skating party,” Buffy said slowly, forcing the memory to come. “It was somebody’s birthday. It was really fun, I skated the whole time and didn’t fall down once. We were coming back from the party. I fell asleep in the car. When I woke up-“

She looked up, startled. It was astonishing how sharp the bright line was dividing Buffy from Kelly. What was even sadder was that Kelly felt like a different person. Memories that would normally have faded with age still had the same stunning clarity they would for a nine year old, and they had no connection to the person that girl had become.

“When I woke up, I was Buffy Summers, and I lived in LA. You were gone. Mom, what happened?”

Her mother hugged her.

“I don’t know, baby. But the important thing is, you woke up.”

Buffy pulled back to look at her.

“You didn’t,” she said flatly.

Her mother shook her head.

Buffy knew then and there that if she ever found out who was responsible, they were going to have a very bad day. Rule 22 only applied if it had been normal humans against normal humans. Somehow Buffy didn’t think that was terribly likely in this case. And if it wasn’t humans… well, maybe it was time to make ‘Anything that comes at me through my family is going to die painfully’ a rule.

“Tell me about what happened when you woke up?” her mother asked.

Buffy shrugged.

“My parents were Joyce and Hank. My mother was into art, and Hank was a tax attorney. Mom was wonderful. Hank was at first, but not once I was Called.”

Her mother looked at her, and Buffy could tell that this was something she really didn’t understand.

“What happened to you, Kelly baby?” she asked, sounding utterly heartbroken.

Buffy sighed. She really didn’t know how to handle giving The Speech to her dead mother- who might really only be her memory reasserting itself. She decided to go with reassuring instead.

“I’m ok, Mom. Really.”

Her mother gave her a watery smile, as if she knew there was more. Of course, if this was truly her mother talking to her, then it was possible she did. Buffy had run into more than one demon that knew she’d come back. Willow had told her once it showed in her aura if you knew how to see it.

“And Dawn?” her mother asked.

Buffy held her mother’s hand.

“She’s my sister. There were these monks who had something they had to protect at all costs. A hellgoddess was searching for it. They didn’t know what else to do, so they made it human- turned it into my sister. She didn’t exist until I was nineteen. But she’s your daughter just as much as I am.”

Her mother did her best to smile, but the tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Your father’s going to be so confused. Promise me you’ll explain everything to him?”

Maybe not a memory, then, Buffy thought. Would a memory be so insistent- or have such unshakable confidence she’d be seeing her father again?

“Mom, it’ll be ok-“

“You’re so much like him. Kelly, promise me.”

“Ok, mom, I promise.”

\---

Gibbs was not in a pleasant frame of mind when he strode into autopsy.

“Ah, Jethro,” Ducky greeted him. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“What do you have for me, Duck?” Gibbs demanded.

Ducky stepped over to the door and locked it.

“A question,” he replied seriously.

Gibbs looked at him in surprise. Glancing over at the camera, he noticed it had been disconnected. This conversation was both private and off the record.

“You have my attention.”

“Jethro, Abigail has told me of her findings. That Kelly is alive. That and a few things I have not committed to paper have led me to an unpleasant suspicion.”

He paused, then as if leaping off a cliff, posed his question.

“Jethro, I must ask. Before you deployed to Iraq, did anyone approach you and your wife regarding Kelly? A program for gifted students, perhaps, or a boarding school?”

Gibbs froze. He hadn’t thought about that in years.

“How did you-“

Ducky looked thunderous.

“I was afraid of this. Jethro, what I am about to tell you cannot possibly be entered into any official report. However outlandish it may sound, I assure you it is factual.”  
He paused, and when Gibbs didn’t protest, he continued.

“Have you ever encountered a vampire?”

“Where are you going with this, Duck?” Gibbs asked. If anyone else had said it, he would have already been dialing for security to come with the straitjacket. But Ducky sounded far too sure, and Gibbs had known him too long to think it was a bad joke or that the man had gone crazy.

“No place I like,” Ducky replied darkly. “Indulge me- what would you do if vampires were real?”

“Shoot them,” Gibbs said without hesitation.

“Bullets won’t kill them,” Ducky said. “And even the weakest of them are stronger and faster than nearly all humans.”

“I give up, Duck, what do you do?”

“We don’t do anything, Jethro. There are those who do, however. They call themselves the Watcher’s Council- at least, they do if they’re using their real name. They’ve used many fronts and pseudonyms over the years. I suspect this Guardian International Dawn Summers claims as her employer is one of their newer ones.”

“How does this relate to Kelly?”

“They look for young girls with certain talents. Before you ask, it’s unclear to me how exactly they locate these girls, but the Council place great value on them. Potentials, they call them. When they identify one, they will stop at nothing to gain control of her.”

“How do you know this, Duck?” Gibbs asked. “If they’re not into using their name openly.”

“My sister was one of these girls,” Ducky replied.

“I thought you were an only child.”

“I wasn’t always. I had a younger sister. How she came to their attention, I will never know. They convinced my parents to send her away to school early, when she was only seven. We never saw her again.”

“Someone did come to ask if we were interested in sending Kelly to a school for gifted children. Offered a scholarship that would cover everything. We wouldn’t have paid a dime,” Gibbs told him. “Shannon wouldn’t hear of it. I was about to deploy and she didn’t want both of us going and leaving her alone in the house to worry. She said Kelly was staying with her, end of story. We told the man who talked to us that we’d reconsider after my deployment was over. The girls followed me out to Pendleton not long after.”

“And you never heard from him again.”

“I didn’t,” Gibbs replied slowly. “Shannon mentioned he’d contacted her just after New Year’s, to ask if she had changed her mind.”

“And she said she hadn’t,” Ducky guessed.

Gibbs nodded.

“That’s the last I knew of it. Hell, I hadn’t thought about that for years. Now that I do, I don’t know how he knew she was in California. We never told him we were moving.”

“It has all the hallmarks of their involvement,” Ducky said. “You see, when I was older, I crossed paths with one of those girls. I say girl, but she was a young adult by then. She told me my sister was dead and I should forget her. If she thought that would work, she was wrong. I did everything I could to find out more about the Council. If they decide a girl is what they’re looking for, you don’t get to say no. They will take her with or without her parents’ consent. Kelly would not be the first.”

“And this all relates to fighting vampires?”

Ducky sighed, and removed his glasses.

“That is the worst part, Jethro. The woman I encountered told me how it relates to fighting vampires- they train the girls to fight them. Once the Council takes a girl, she is trained for that, and that alone. If they are chosen, the fight becomes their life, and they do not have the option to quit or retire. They fight until they lose. Then another girl is chosen to take up the fight. One of her first assignments is to avenge her fallen predecessor.”

He sighed.

“Needless to say, my informant was quite bitter about this. She was not herself chosen to fight, for which small mercy she was thankful. But even once the Council decides that a girl is not suitable to be their fighter, these girls are not simply released. They are instead groomed to become agents of the Council themselves. Some of them are permitted to have a semblance of a normal life- relationships, perhaps even a family. But only those who are deemed sufficiently loyal to the Council. The others become… disposable.”

“So you’re saying-“

“You should not have overly high hopes for Kelly, Jethro. If she was taken by the Council, chances are you will not have any contact with her. The Council is unlikely to permit it. And if they’ve managed to shape her into what they want…”

“Then she is unlikely to want to have any contact with me,” Gibbs finished grimly.

Ducky nodded heavily.

“Diana was deeply unhappy about what she was being asked to do in the service of the Council, but she saw no other option. If they found out her true feelings, they would have killed her. The people running this organization are ruthless, Jethro. They have protection at the very highest levels, and not just from our government- from all governments. They are not subject to any oversight or control. They are a law unto themselves. And they have no compassion whatsoever for those poor girls.”

“Abby said the dead girl in the car with Shannon wasn’t Kelly. But there was a dead girl. One of their fighters?”

“Or one who didn’t make the cut,” Ducky sniffed. “I certainly wouldn’t put it past them to have switched a girl who was no longer useful to them for one they wanted.”

“Is it just Kelly you wanted to talk to me about, Duck?” Gibbs asked, burying frustration and flat out rage as deep as he could. If he ever met an agent of this Watchers’ Council, there would be a reckoning- and not just for Kelly.

“No. It is not only Kelly’s sudden reappearance that triggered my suspicions, Jethro. It is also the manner in which some of the victims of our multiple homicide died. Quite a few of them showed signs of torture. All of them died of exsanguination. Yet there was a distinct lack of blood at the scene. And then I found this.”

He led Gibbs to one of the occupied autopsy tables. The throat of the body had been badly mangled.

“As you can see, there is extensive damage to the throat,” Ducky said, pointing. “However, I was able to determine that much of this damage was post-mortem. Someone was trying to cover up the real cause of death.”

“You’re saying you suspect vampires.”

“Yes,” Ducky replied. “I am taking precautions with these bodies, Jethro, on the off chance that any of them were intended to become vampires themselves. I do not think it is coincidence that Dawn Summers was in that warehouse. She flew in from London and the perpetrators suddenly changed their pattern. I suspect that Miss Summers is an agent of the Council, and has been tasked to investigate a newly discovered vampire outbreak.”

“That would explain why they changed their pattern,” Gibbs mused. “They recognized her as a threat. But they were interrupted before they could finish her or dispose of the other bodies.”

He remembered Finn’s cryptic statement that if anyone had meant to take Dawn, she would have been dead before the MPs arrived. The obvious conclusion was that Finn knew about the Council and its mission- possibly because his unit had a similar one. He couldn’t imagine it sat well with the US government to have a secretive extra-governmental agency that obeyed no rules but its own as their only resort in case of a vampire problem. It made sense that the Corps would be involved.

Ducky nodded.

“And if my suspicions are correct,” he said sadly, “Miss Summers would be the last person to tell you the full truth about what happened in that warehouse.”

Gibbs paused, before looking at the medical examiner in the closest thing to complete bewilderment Ducky had ever seen on his face.

“Ducky, she thinks Kelly is her sister. That both of them grew up in California. Even though that’s not possible- Kelly was with Shannon until the accident, and we only had one daughter. She wasn’t acting- there was genuine confusion on her face when McGee told her she had no birth certificate.”

Ducky sat down on the stool at his computer with a sigh.

“It’s perfectly possible that she truly believes Kelly to be her sister. If both of them have been in the Council’s care since childhood, there’s no telling what sort of conditioning they’ve been exposed to. Human memory is not as reliable as we like to think, Jethro. Given sufficient time and prompting, most people can be convinced that they remember things that never happened. A skilled manipulator can produce highly detailed memories the victim will subsequently swear are their own- and they become upset when the validity of those memories is challenged. It’s a bit like reprogramming a computer. Children are particularly vulnerable.”

Gibbs looked thunderous, not that Ducky had expected anything else. Abuse of children was always a sure-fire way to rile Gibbs. Abuse of _his_ child…

He sighed. Unlike most cases in which he was even eager to see Gibbs catch the perpetrator, this time he was worried. The Council was above and beyond anything Jethro had ever tangled with before.

“I’ll see what Dawn can tell me. But I want to at least talk to Kelly, Duck. One way or another.”  
Ducky nodded heavily. He’d expected as much.

“Be careful, Jethro. From what I know of them, the Council are quite capable of killing your career. Or killing you, should they decide it’s necessary.”


	10. Not Even Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Dawn sighed happily as she finished her comparison and resisted the urge to pet the tablet appreciatively. When she got back to Graham’s, she’d call Slayer Central with the good news- although this was about the only part of that call that promised to be good. She wasn’t feeling any calmer about her morning interview several hours later. In fact, she was pretty sure if she had Slaydar, it would be going off full tilt about now.

“Your piece is the real deal, I take it?” the woman next to her asked with a wry smile.

Lara Whitmire was an archaeologist, specializing in Mesopotamia. She was still a few years too young to be considered top of her field- as Willow put it, she didn’t have grey hairs yet- but she’d definitely made a name for herself. She was currently based at the University of Pennsylvania, but she’d been one place or another in America ever since she left Cambridge to do her Ph.D. at Yale around the time Buffy had been Called.

Dawn nodded.

“Yep. We can’t exactly break out the bubbly in here, but I’ll totally buy cake in the café once we’re done.”

Lara grinned.

“Sure. Any chance you’ll tell me where your ‘client’ came by such an interesting artifact?”

Dawn shrugged.

“I don’t have the details. I can’t even go on record about who the client is.”

Lara showed every sign of exasperation. They had to be careful in their conversation, because the historian who had come down from Yale with the other exemplar Dawn had needed for her comparison was not a Council ally, nor was the Smithsonian curator.

Lara wasn’t an ally exactly, but she was in the know- her father, Alistair had been on the old Council. He’d been among the dead when the First blew up the London headquarters. Lara’s mother, a former Potential, had seized the opportunity to get away from Council control, returning to her native Italy.

Dawn carefully handed back the Yale piece and watched the historian secure it in its case for transport, thanking him profusely as he did so. She and Lara finished clearing the worktable after he left before taking off their gloves. Dawn’s thanks to the Smithsonian researcher were considerably warmer, as she’d worked with him once before to verify several translations. He was delighted to hear that she would be in town on a permanent basis.

When she’d said her goodbyes to the beaming curator, Dawn and Lara headed out for the public areas.

Dawn let Lara lead her to the smaller museum cafe in the dinosaur wing. It was quiet this late in the afternoon- the two women had the place pretty much to themselves. Dawn picked her dessert and waved at Lara to select whatever she wanted before they tucked themselves into a table by the window, where they’d not only get the last of the afternoon sun, but it would also be difficult for anyone to eavesdrop without being noticed.

It was a slow process, winning the trust of people the old Council had burned. Many of the adult former Potentials who had grown up under the Travers regime wanted nothing to do with the Council now that they had a choice. Those who had cautiously chosen to work with the New Council had been valuable sources of information about current and former Watchers and Council facilities. Giles didn’t know everything, and with the central archives as well as the senior personnel obliterated in one swoop, they’d had quite a time piecing everything back together while finding newly called Slayers worldwide and training the willing.

“So was your Akkadian tablet the only reason you’re in town?” Lara asked, digging into her double chocolate slice with verve.

Dawn grinned. It was driving Lara bonkers not to get to see the real thing. Dawn had brought plenty of photographs, of course. But seeing as the tablet was from the original Ekur archive, it was far too precious to remove from Council vaults. More so, once you considered that there was every chance the stories it contained about Inanna and Enlil were relevant to some of the issues Slayers dealt with. And as Dawn had just verified in her comparison, the text they had contained more details than any other recovered. Maybe this would be the sweetener she needed to persuade Lara...

“No, we’ve been working in the Mid-Atlantic region steadily enough that we’re opening up a new branch,” Dawn said. “DC is centrally located, not to mention it makes it easy to talk to certain people. This week was supposed to be all about getting the house ready.”

Lara raised a suspicious eyebrow.

“Supposed to be?” she asked, her tone practically demanding to know what had gone wrong.

Dawn tried not to grin. She’d been working on Lara for a while now, hoping to be able to put her in the ‘ally’ category soon, if not convince her to join up outright. Her expertise combined with her knowledge of both the Council and the supernatural would put her on the fast track to Watcher. Right now, training new Watchers was far more problematic than training new Slayers- and took way more time.  
She was pretty sure Lara was on the verge of coming around. Dawn was positive if Lara could be convinced to visit Slayer Central, it would seal the deal.

“Yeah, something unexpected came up. Let’s just say my injuries didn’t come from falling out of bed. You might want to scratch any sightseeing you had planned for this trip and head straight home.”

Lara frowned.

“I was going to stay until Friday- it gives me another day to do research on some of the museum’s holdings, then I’m flying out to join my mother for her birthday.”

Dawn looked her straight in the eye.

“I’m rarely accused of being overcautious, but if I were you, I’d ask mum if she minded me flying in early.”

Lara sighed, then glanced down at her watch. If she went straight from the museum to her hotel, she’d have time to pack and catch the late flights from Dulles. Then she looked down at her plate.

“I have time to finish the cake, right?”

Dawn nodded.

“I think so, but you should definitely clear out before dark.”

Lara gave Dawn an evaluating look.

“Dawn, I’ve never seen you this bothered. Is it just a local problem, or something worse going on?”

Dawn chewed her lip for a second. She trusted Lara, but this wasn’t for public consumption and she had that nagging feeling she’d learned over the years meant someone or something was watching. It was a shame that they weren’t someplace where it would be safe to risk magic to ensure they couldn’t be overheard. But she wasn’t nearly as adept as Willow, and not about to take chances- the Smithsonian had more than one artifact in its keeping that shouldn’t be woken up. Yet another reason to work on Lara- none of the current Smithsonian personnel knew anything about the things that went bump in the night or boom with the mojo.

“I think it’s just local, but I’ve been talking to NCIS all morning, and it’s got me on edge.”

Lara put her fork down.

“Want to share?”

Dawn shrugged.

“It’s probably nothing, but-“

Lara snorted.

“Please. I may not be part of the firm, but I grew up around this stuff, too. Whenever you have to start with a disclaimer like that, it’s something.”

“They were checking my background because of what I was involved in last night, and they can’t find a birth certificate for me. Or Buffy. In fact, they can’t find much at all.”

Lara’s face darkened. She hesitated before speaking, but when she did, Dawn knew she finally had her ally.

“Dawn, I respect what you and your sister have done. The reorganization has been really good, and long overdue. But you need to understand, things used to be very different. Travers may have had a noble goal, but his methods were rather brutal. There’s a reason I left England and haven’t been back.”

Lara hesitated. She seemed to be drawing into herself, unusual for the vivacious researcher Dawn had come to know and respect over the past four years. She took a deep breath, and the words emerged as if she had to get them out before she could change her mind.

“Travers used me as leverage against my parents- more my mother, but I think my father was in play, too, and possibly my uncle as well. There was a faction that wanted to treat the girls better- even leave some of them with their parents. Naturally, my mother was in favor of that. How could she not be? Then Travers called my father in. If my family didn’t side with him, he hinted that something unfortunate might happen to me. Going to New Haven didn’t make me safe- he had a long reach- but I felt better with an ocean between us.”

Dawn snorted.

“An ocean wouldn’t have stopped him if he wanted to do something. He reached all the way to California with no problems.”

“I’m aware,” Lara replied grimly. She glanced around and then leaned in, dropping her voice.

“She must have been quite a thorn in his side. And it’s bothered Mamma for a while, your sister popping up out of nowhere. They didn’t ‘miss’ Potentials. Maybe before modern communications and transportation they couldn’t reach them all, but by the 80s or 90s? No way. They might have left a few be as lost causes, but you can bet they kept an eye on them just in case. They didn’t miss a bloody thing. It doesn’t feel right that they would let one evade them, much less grow into the problem she became.”

“You think they did know about her?” Dawn asked, confused.

Lara shook her head.

“No, they would not have let her go untrained. Have you ever met any of the Potentials who trained under the old regime?”

At Dawn’s nod, she waved a dismissive hand.

“Then you know what your sister would have turned into if they had her. They did not know. Someone must have, though. How else could she have stayed hidden for so long?”

“Who would do that, though?” Dawn asked.

Lara shrugged.

“I don’t know. Anyone who did would have been risking everything- Travers would not have forgiven such a move.”

She glanced at her watch.

“I must go- otherwise I will not make my new flight. I’ll call you when I reach Mamma’s. Maybe she will be able to tell us more.”

Dawn nodded gratefully, rising to hug Lara and give her the kiss on both cheeks that was customary among Italians. Lara was a fascinating mix of England and Italy, as likely to lecture you on the proper way to make tea as show you how to make espresso.

“Be careful. Call sooner if you run into any trouble.”

“You be careful, also,” Lara replied. “Something does not feel right about all this.”

Dawn suppressed a shiver. Lara wasn’t wrong. Something didn’t feel right- and that was as close to rule 7 as made no nevermind.

\---

Ziva frowned as she watched Lara Whitmire’s taxi pull away from the curb. She’d managed to follow the two women to the café when they’d emerged from the non-public area of the museum, but with the café empty, she hadn’t dared go in after them. If she’d gotten close enough to listen, it would also have been close enough for Dawn Summers to spot her. Something told Ziva that Summers did not believe in coincidence any more than Gibbs did.

She’d gotten close enough to hear Whitmire giving instructions to her cab driver, though- first to her hotel, where the driver was to wait, then to the airport. It was possible Summers was an agent, after all- the non-public meeting would have given her ample time to pass something off to Whitmire, who was now changing her plans to fly immediately. If she had originally intended to leave town after the meeting, she would have brought her bags with her to the museum.

Ziva waited by her car, pretending to be a lost tourist fumbling with a map as Summers emerged from the museum entrance. Summers walked swiftly to where Miller waited in his car, and Ziva hopped into her own. She was also careful to stay several cars behind them at all times while tailing them as they made their way toward the river-from what McGee had been able to tell them of his unit, she suspected Miller would be employing countersurveillance measures.

To her surprise, rather than drop Summers at a hotel, or even take her to his own residence, Miller headed for the Pentagon. She pulled into a different section of the parking lot and watched as Miller and Summers both went in. There was only one reason she could think of why they would come here, and she had no excuse to follow them inside, much less a good way to do so without either one seeing her.

Gibbs was not going to be pleased.

She pulled out her phone, and after a moment’s hesitation, she punched McGee’s number.

“McGee? I need you to check departures at the local airports. Passenger’s name is Whitmire, Lara.”

She spelled the last name for him phonetically, and waited, listening to the sound of clicking keys, until McGee found it. As she’d suspected, it was a sudden change- her original itinerary did not have her flying until later in the week.

“Rome? Are you sure? And she is not listed as a known agent? Thank you, McGee. No, I will be back shortly.”

She hung up on McGee and after a deep breath, punched another number- one she would have preferred not to have to use.

“Abba. I have a question for you. Do you recognize the name Lara Whitmire? What about Dawn Summers?”

\---

On his way up from Ducky’s domain, Gibbs stopped by the lab again. As he’d hoped, Abby had more for him. He could tell by the way she brightened and almost bounced up and down when she spotted him coming through her door.

“Gibbs! Which do you want first- mother, daughter, or dead girl Doe?”

“Mother,” Gibbs said. He was curious to hear what she’d found out about Joyce Summers.

“Joyce Summers is no relation to either Buffy or Dawn Summers!” Abby chirped. “No more DNA in common than you’d expect from random strangers. But here’s where it gets interesting. I ran her DNA through the databases and got nothing. Not exactly surprising, because even if she had some sort of criminal record or something, it would be pre-1991, right? And we know DNA testing wasn’t as common back then. So I ran her description and tried facial recognition on her photo.”

“You can do that?” Gibbs asked.

“Gibbs, please. The photo was small, but it was clear enough to get measurements for facial isometrics. Unlike DNA, photos of missing persons do go back to the time frame we’re looking at- and most of them have been digitized. Anyway, Joyce Summers is most likely a missing woman from Ohio, Carol Winters. Mrs. Winters was reported missing in mid January 1991 from her hometown- she left her parents’ house to go to the supermarket and never came back.”

“No one investigated her disappearance?” Gibbs asked.

Abby shook her head emphatically.

“No, Gibbs, they did! The local police found her car in the supermarket parking lot, but no trace of her- she’d never gone into the store. The police report says her friends and family were worried about her, as she was recently widowed and taking it hard. Her husband was in the military and was killed in a road vehicle accident in Saudi Arabia during the buildup to Desert Storm. She was four months pregnant when she got the news- she miscarried. Anyway, she was reported missing within hours and because of the concerns about her state of mind, the police didn’t wait to investigate. But they came up with a big fat nothing. It was like she just vanished into thin air.”

Gibbs looked at the photo. Carol Winters had been about the same age as Shannon.

“And Gibbs, look at the name!”

“Yeah, Abbs, I see it. Winters became Summers. But did she do it, or did someone else?”

Abby looked at him in astonishment.

“You think someone abducted her _and_ Kelly? Gibbs, that’s pretty dark.”

“I don’t want to try to tell Dawn Summers that we think her mother kidnapped her sister unless we’re absolutely sure, Abby.”

“Good point. That brings us neatly to our next topic- the dead girl who is not Kelly. Gibbs, I can’t find anything about this girl. No missing children who might be her, no DNA matches to Joyce, Dawn, Buffy, or any of the databases- it’s like she didn’t exist until her body showed up in that car. This child was not malnourished or poorly cared for, Gibbs, or the investigators would never have been fooled into misidentifying her as Kelly. So it’s hard to believe that no one reported her missing.”

 _Not so hard, actually, if what Ducky was saying about the Council is right_ , Gibbs thought grimly. _They didn’t need her anymore, so they traded what was left of her for one they wanted._

“Finally,” Abby said, “you might want to sit down for this part. No, seriously, Gibbs.”  
She waited until he obediently seated himself on one of her lab stools.

“Remember you asked me to run Dawn Summers’ DNA? Congratulations, Gibbs, it’s a girl- Dawn Summers is a sibling match to Kelly- with a degree of commonality indicating full siblings. And before you ask, I ran her DNA against yours, too. I have no explanation for this, because she’s old enough that you should know about her, but she is definitely your child, Gibbs. And Shannon’s.”

It was good that Abby had made him sit down, because he really doubted his legs would have held him upright. Two daughters? God, if only he could tell Shannon. She would have been so happy…

Abby picked something up off the lab bench that served as her ‘desk’ more often than the desk in her actual office.

“There’s more?” Gibbs asked, not sure he could handle anything else beyond Kelly back from the dead and another daughter who defied any reasonable explanation.

“I, um, made you a copy of the photo from Dawn’s locket,” Abby said hesitantly. “You know what Dawn looks like, but I thought you’d want to see Kelly, too. I figured you’d rather this than Kelly’s current passport mugshot.”

She handed him the photo. She’d blown it up slightly from the locket size and used the lab’s image analysis software to clean it up so he could see the three women better. The two girls were smiling, their mother’s arms around them. He ignored the mystery that was Joyce Summers in favor of her supposed daughters. His daughters. Dawn was still a teenager, looking much younger and far more cheerful than he’d seen her- not that he’d seen her at her best.

Kelly… Kelly had inherited that smile of his mother’s that could blind you, spreading her happiness to everyone else in the room. The hair might be dyed, but the eyes had to be from her other grandmother. He stared at the photo, alert for any sign that either girl had been abused or mistreated, and found none. Whatever else had happened to his little girl, she had grown up loved.

 _That_ didn’t mesh with what Ducky had said about the Council at all.

“They were happy, Gibbs,” Abby said softly. “Whoever she really was, Joyce Summers cared about those girls. You can see it looking at them.”

Gibbs nodded. It was true. It showed in the expression on all three faces, and in Dawn’s frantic reaction when she’d realized her last tangible connection to the only mother she had known was missing. Even if the woman had been involved in Kelly’s abduction, his gut said there was no way either of the Summers sisters knew it.

Part of him wanted nothing more than to go track Dawn down right now. Maybe she could explain all this- and even if she couldn’t, the father in him wanted to see his daughter safe at home, where the bastards he was supposed to be chasing couldn’t lay another hand on her. For all he knew, she was still a target.

The other part of him was terrified that there was no good ending to this story. His girls might never come home. If they spooked her, Dawn would probably run, and if the Council had the kind of immunity Ducky had implied, once she left the US, he’d never see her again- and any chance of seeing Kelly would vanish with her.


	11. For Every Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

When Buffy opened her eyes, she found Faith lounging on the floor, paging through a magazine.

“According to your horoscope, this month is a good time for patching up fights and starting over,” she offered.

Buffy snorted.

“Great, I’ll be sure to do that. What fight am I supposed to be patching up?”

Faith smirked. The two senior Slayers had long ago buried the hatchet, to the point that occasionally new trainee Slayers thought that the two were speaking literally when they referred to each other as sisters. One of the class of ’10 girls had actually been asking who Mr. Lehane had been and if a demon got him. Dawn had verbally torn strips out of a few junior Slayers who had been around long enough to know better when she found out they’d been gleefully feeding that mistaken impression.

“Did you find anything out?”

Buffy sighed.

“Not as much as I’d hoped. My dad was deployed to Iraq when whatever took me away from my parents happened. I’m pretty sure whatever it was involved my mother’s death.”

Faith sat up, raising an eyebrow. This would not go well. Never mind that whatever happened had gone down twenty years ago, hurting family was a surefire trigger for both Summers girls. Hell, it had been for Mrs. S, too. It was something you just didn’t do unless you were ok with the idea that you would bleed for it.

B was constrained by rule 22- human world, human rules- but D tended to take a slightly more flexible approach these days. There was a reason that few crossed the younger Summers despite her lack of Slayer powers. She’d developed a streak of ruthlessness that rarely surfaced unless her family was in danger. Xander had once wondered what would have happened had they not had Giles, Faith, and Spike around to keep her from crossing the line.

Maybe, if they were lucky, whoever killed B’s other mom would turn out to be dead already. It would make things considerably simpler.

“B-“

“I don’t think there’s too much more we can find out from a distance,” Buffy said. “We’re already scheduled to fly tomorrow, right?”

Faith nodded.

“First flight out in the morning. We can stay here or crash at my flat tonight, whichever you’d rather.”

Buffy chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“I’m not saying it’s a decision, but your place is closer to the airport, and we’re not really a morning type crowd. Has Dawn called in yet?”

Faith nodded.

“She called earlier, but you were still asleep. Figured things must be going ok, cause except for a minute or so where you looked like you were about to slay something, you looked pretty happy, so I didn’t wake you up. D said she’d call back after playing looky-loo at the museum. Figured there was no point to making her say everything twice anyway.”

Buffy eyed Faith. She knew her sister Slayer well enough to know there was something she was leaving out.

“What?” she demanded.

Faith sighed and surrendered to the inevitable.

“I was going to wait until we were all back in conference, but I guess it doesn’t make much difference if you see it now.”

She handed Buffy her phone. There was a text notification blinking. It was from Dawn.

_NCIS says I have no birth certificate- and Buffy doesn’t either. What’s going on??_

Buffy looked up, mystified.

“We do too have birth certificates,” she said. “We did, anyway. They were in Mom’s desk with all the other important papers we didn’t think to grab before we wrecked Sunnyhell.”

Faith stood up with an unconcerned shrug.

“Wasn’t like dropping the whole town into a crater was part of the plan,” she said, pulling Buffy to her feet in one smooth motion that would have dumped anyone else on their butt. “Good thing Cleveland didn’t play out the same way when we sealed it, think how awkward that would have been. Come on, the others are dying to know what you remember now.”

The two Slayers moseyed down the hall to the conference room, where they found a heated discussion already in progress.

“Riley, it was a surprise to us, too!” Xander was saying angrily into the phone. “And if you already knew, it might have been helpful if you’d brought it up before Dawn tangled with a federal agency!”

Willow, seeing Buffy and Faith’s entrance, set down the phone she’d been holding and reached over, hitting the button to put the call on speaker so everyone could hear.

“We assumed at the time that it was the Council protecting the Slayer by restricting access to her records!” Riley snapped. “How was I supposed to know that wasn’t the case?”

Willow surprised everyone by letting out an ear-splitting whistle. At the surprised looks of everyone in the room, she grinned.

“Now that the gang’s all here,” she said brightly. Her diversion neatly kept the boys from really getting into it. Xander and Riley mostly got along, but the few times they’d butted heads over the years had not been fun for anyone.

“Riley, we didn’t have any clue at our end,” Willow continued. “Buffy used to have paper copies of both birth certificates, but they went down with the rest of Sunnydale. Are you saying those copies weren’t legit?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” Riley replied. “We didn’t dig into it very far back then, but after Dawn texted me, I checked again- state of California has nothing on record for either of them. That has to be setting off all manner of red flags over at NCIS. God only knows what they’re thinking.”

The intercom buzzed.

“Dawn just checked in,” Mona announced. “She says she’s just arriving at Riley’s office.”

“I thought she was going to call from Graham’s,” Buffy said, confused.

“I asked them to come here instead,” Riley said. “Thought it might be easier to do at least some of this face to face.”

“If you would prefer face to face, we will be arriving in DC tomorrow,” Giles told him.

There was a moment of silence from the other end of the phone and a low murmur in the background that implied it was under consideration, and then Dawn spoke.

“How about if we just do a secure videoconference now?” she asked. “At least a short one. Cause I’d definitely like to know what’s the what before I deal with the NCIS people again. You guys won’t be here until after lunchtime, but I’m stuck with them again tomorrow morning. I’d rather not be blindsided a second time if it’s all the same to everyone.”

“Will?” Buffy asked expectantly.

Willow clicked a few things on her laptop before grabbing the hookup for the conference room projector.

“Coming right up,” she said. “Can you see us?”

Riley, Graham, and Dawn appeared on the screen. Dawn’s face was an interesting mix of excited and irritated. Graham looked concerned, and Riley looked frazzled.

“Ok, so what happened at your end, Dawn?” Buffy asked.

“I got to NCIS this morning and instead of asking about last night, they asked a lot about our past- a little about mine, but mostly about yours,” Dawn replied. “I had no idea where they were going with it, this came totally out of left field. I couldn’t think of a way to shut it down without either looking suspicious or flat out demanding to speak to the President. Anyway, they say there’s no paperwork for either of us until Sunnydale, and really nothing at all for me until we got our passports.”

Buffy knew she wasn’t the only one in the room getting Dawn’s unspoken message-she was being as clear as she dared, but there were some things she wouldn’t say even on a supposedly secure line, and mentioning the Key was one of them.

“Anyway,” Dawn continued, “the investigator I talked to said he was going to following up in England, so someone might want to make sure our public records are up to date and non-suspicious. NCIS also can’t find much about Mom or Hank. Graham thinks you might be an abducted child, but I’m having trouble with that idea. Hank’s more than proven that he doesn’t care enough to have done it and I can picture Dru sane easier than Mom hurting a kid. Your turn.”

“Willow lifted that memory spell I told you about,” Buffy began, only to be interrupted by Riley and Graham both demanding to know what she was talking about.

“Buffy recently began having troubling dreams,” Giles cut in. “Upon talking to Willow, she discovered her memory had been altered prior to her being called as the Slayer.”

Graham and Riley exchanged troubled glances.

“Are you ok, Buffy?” Riley asked.

“Peachy with a side of keen,” Buffy replied, fooling no one who knew her. “But it turns out I wasn’t born Buffy Summers. I still don’t remember what my original name was, but I think it may have been Kelly. That’s what my mother called me in my dreams, anyway. My father was a Marine. While he was deployed in Iraq, someone took me away from my mother. I think whoever it was may have killed her.”

Graham grabbed a laptop off Riley’s desk and started to type, but Riley cut him off.

“Don’t. NCIS is already sniffing around. We caught them trying to hack into us earlier this afternoon. They’re the ones you’d have to go through to get records of Marines whose kids went missing. Let Willow handle it so there’s no connection to us.”

Dawn frowned.

“Hey, if this is a meeting-“

Riley handed her a box without comment.

“We trained you well,” Xander commented, as Dawn pulled out a donut with rainbow sprinkles.

“Uh-huh,” Riley said with a tinge of irritation. He’d never quite gotten used to the lack of seriousness with which the Scoobies confronted pretty much everything. “But I’m actually more concerned about rule 27 right now- does anyone else think it’s weird that this is happening right when one of you first came into contact with the agency that would be responsible for investigating missing Marine dependents?”

“Yeah, the timing is a little suspicious,” Willow agreed. “Buffy, did you find anything else out?”

“I think my mom had something to do with the timing,” Buffy said slowly. “She kept talking about needing to be ready to see my father, like she thinks we’re going to run into each other.”

“Maybe your father’s in DC,” Xander suggested.

“Or maybe NCIS is bringing your father to DC now that they’re digging into the case,” Graham pointed out. “The only way they could have latched onto Buffy would be through DNA. If that’s the case, it will be easy for them to contact him to say they have a lead on you. I’d be surprised if they haven’t already.”

“Dawn, did they give you any impression that they were concerned about you?” Giles asked. “Any indication that they believe you are also-“

“Kidnapped as a kid, as opposed to as an adult?” Dawn asked sardonically. At Giles’ nod, she shook her head. “Nope. Once they established that I remembered living in LA before Sunnydale, they asked a lot of questions about Buffy. It’s like they think she’s the odd one out.”

Riley frowned.

“There has to be more to it than that. They wouldn’t have Buffy’s DNA and not compare it to Dawn’s if they thought she was a missing child. If they think Buffy is an abduction victim, it implies that Dawn is, too.”

Dawn shrugged.

“They didn’t ask anything like ‘do you remember being kidnapped as a young child’,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but they couldn’t, could they?” Graham replied. “It was clear you had no idea what was going on. They’ll want to keep you around while they continue to investigate. They know you work for an international- if they freak you out and you leave the country, there goes their lead. It’s not like any other government is going to forcibly return you or your sister. Even if you’re kidnapping victims, you’re an adult and they don’t have grounds to extradite you.”

Buffy sighed.

“Why is everything always complicated?” she asked rhetorically. “Right, here’s the deal. I’m flying in with Will, Xander, Faith, and Giles tomorrow. That should be enough firepower to finish the setup on the DC facility, deal with whatever the merry hell is going on down in Quantico, and tell NCIS politely but firmly to back off of Dawn while I try to remember whatever else there is to remember. And if we’re not happy with how things play out tomorrow, then NCIS gets the call telling them they’ve wandered off the edge of the map.”

Graham smirked.

“Here there be monsters?” he suggested.

Despite his attempt to lighten the mood, Dawn still looked apprehensive.

“Dawn?” Giles added, in a parental tone. “Do remember that you are allowed to tell the investigators to direct all queries to the Council’s legal department. It was noble of you to cooperate with their investigation, but you may cease to do so at any time you choose. NCIS do not need any further explanation once you make it clear that they should talk to you through your legal representative. And you are entitled to make that call without having to involve anyone else.”

Now Dawn looked relieved.

“So I can get out of answering questions without invoking the President?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Willow reassured her. “Any Council personnel are authorized to refer any law enforcement or other government authorities they encounter to their lawyer.”

“And you’re high enough that we send the big dogs,” Xander grinned. “Not quite bloodsucking lawyers, but hey, we can always arrange some of those, right?”

\---

Gibbs sighed as he poured himself a measure of bourbon. He was in his basement, but for once not working on anything. He couldn’t. There was too much in his head to concentrate on the wood. He looked blankly at the boat, meant to be the _Kelly II_. Amira’s original had been fixed, and he’d decided to start a new one- this one would be for him.

But now that he knew Kelly- his girl, not the boat- was still in the world, he couldn’t look at the boat without thinking about her. Wondering where she was, what she was doing. It was almost as maddening as the first time he’d been deployed after she was born. The difference was that time it had been duty that demanded he be separated from his little girl- and he’d expected her to still be there when he got back. Now they were separated because someone had taken his baby when he wasn’t there to protect her. Worse still, he hadn’t even known she’d been taken.

Then there was the puzzle of Dawn Summers. He’d never known Abby to be wrong about forensics. Her DNA analysis said Dawn was his daughter. And Shannon’s. Hearing that had been like a punch to the gut- one of his biggest regrets was not listening to Shannon when she swore they could make their budget stretch to fit a second child. They had that second child now, but he was sure she didn’t know she was his.  
How the hell do you tell a grown woman she’s your daughter?

Gibbs heard the door open and shut again. Listening, he recognized the tread. He wasn’t surprised to see Ziva walking down the stairs to join him. What did surprise him was that she was almost as tentative as the first time she had taken that walk. Hesitant- almost reluctant.

“Ziva,” he greeted her.

“Gibbs,” she replied.

“What brings you here?” he asked.

“I am not entirely sure,” she replied, seating herself on the workbench. “I have just spoken with Eli. I called him.”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. After Somalia, Ziva hadn’t been on speaking terms with her father until his visit to DC and near-death in the bombing. Even since then, though, their relationship was fragile and uncertain. He wondered what had prompted her call. Usually communication between the two surviving Davids was the other way around.

Ziva paused, and he waited, letting her think through whatever it was. She liked to be sure of what she was saying.

“Family is what brings me here, Gibbs,” she said finally. “I have told you before you are the closest thing I have to a father. That has not changed. Eli may be in my life again, but that does not mean…”

She trailed off, her eyes fixed on the Spot. Gibbs knew she meant there were things she could not overlook- things he wasn’t sure a daughter could or should forgive a father. He hoped Kelly could forgive him.

“I called him, Gibbs, because I was curious about Dawn Summers. She went to the Smithsonian. I do not think it was a cover story, or at least not just a cover story. There were several genuine researchers there who appeared to be meeting with her. But one of her contacts changed her travel plans after the meeting, and I became curious.”

“Where did this contact go?” Gibbs asked.

“Rome. Lara Whitmire is a well-respected archaeologist with quite an impressive CV. However, she also appears to have an interesting family background, and after meeting with Dawn Summers, Whitmire moved her flight up from Friday to leave immediately.”

Gibbs digested that. What could his daughter be doing?

“Tell me about this interesting family background,” he said.

“Whitmire’s father, uncle, and mother were all involved in a limited liability corporation called Custodes Worldwide. Her father was killed in a gas explosion at the corporate headquarters in 2002, shortly after the uncle was murdered while on holiday in Turkey. Within weeks of the explosion, Whitmore’s mother reverted to her maiden name and moved to Italy. One of my sources claimed she sought sanctuary in the Vatican and did not leave until the following summer. I was not able to confirm that, but she now lives in a villa in Rome that is almost suspiciously secure.”

“Custodes…” Gibbs said. “Isn’t that Latin for-“

“Watchmen,” Ziva said. “Or guards.”

“Pretty close to Guardian,” Gibbs observed. “Any chance Custodes has anything in common with Dawn Summers’ employer?”

Ziva smirked.

“They appear to be one and the same, just under a different name. Comparing the available information on their holdings, there is little change.”

“So was Summers reporting to a superior, or just handing a report to a courier?” Gibbs mused aloud. “Is Whitmire’s mother still involved with Guardian?”

Ziva shrugged.

“It is difficult to tell. On the surface, there appears to have been no contact since she established herself in Italy. Of course, we know very little about Guardian’s agents- it would be easy enough for her to still be involved but more discreetly.”

“Eli was your source for all this?” Gibbs said, letting some of his skepticism bleed into his tone. He didn’t trust that shifty bastard any farther than he could throw him- and maybe not even that far.

Ziva shook her head.

“No, most of that was research and asking around. When I called Eli, I asked first about Whitmire, but he claimed not to know the name.”

“You believe him?” Gibbs asked.

Ziva frowned.

“I think so,” she said. “For once.”

She took a deep breath.

“It is about Dawn Summers that I spoke to Eli.”

As she’d expected, that got Gibbs’ full attention.

“What did he say?”

“He told me that we should not interfere with her. He claimed that Dawn and Buffy Summers number among the righteous. He seems to think that if Dawn is here and in danger, her sister will come as well- if she is not in fact here already. But he also thinks that Director Vance will be told that we must drop this case. He expects you will be ordered to stay away from the Summers sisters.”

Gibbs shook his head.

“Not going to happen, Ziva.”

“I know. I said as much. Eli said you would be given no choice. Then he begged me to stay away. I am not sure what it is that worries him about these women, but he sounded almost like a concerned father.”

“Maybe he was,” Gibbs replied. “Ducky was telling me some things about this Guardian International earlier. They’re not a very nice bunch. Did Eli or anyone else at Mossad ever mention vampires to you, by any chance?”

Ziva’s eyes widened.

“Yes! We were warned about them. But the undead are not our concern. There are others who handle such things.”

She paused.

“Is this Guardian those who handle vampires? We were never told who did, just that such people existed and we were to leave them to it.”

Gibbs nodded.

“Yeah, except apparently the people that handle it are a bunch of little girls.”

Ziva’s expression darkened.

“Kelly?”

He shrugged.

“She may have been one of the girls they wanted. Ducky isn’t sure how they pick them, but once they do, they’ll do whatever it takes to get the girl they’ve targeted.”

“How does Dawn Summers fit into this?” Ziva asked. “Is she another of the girls, and they have simply put her together with Kelly? Some sort of team?”

Gibbs hesitated, then decided he might as well tell her. She’d find out eventually either way.

“Abby finished the DNA on Summers. She’s a full sibling match to Kelly.”

Ziva’s jaw dropped. She worked it soundlessly for a second, before managing, “And you…?”

“Never had another child,” Gibbs confirmed. “Abby’s trying to figure out how I ended up with a second daughter.”

Abby had been bouncing off the walls trying to figure it out when he’d left. Her best working theory was that someone had gotten their hands on genetic material from both him and Shannon. If they’d managed that, given technology of the time, whoever kidnapped Kelly could have used in vitro to create her sister. Why they would have done so was an equal mystery.

“What do you plan to do about this?” Ziva asked.

He could see in her eyes that she’d back him no matter what he decided. You do what you have to for family. But he had no answer for her.

“I don’t know, Ziva. I’ve got no plan. I don’t know how to tell a girl I’ve only met once she’s my daughter, let alone ask how she and her sister ended up on the wrong side of the country with a woman I never met raising them.”

“But you do intend to have her come to NCIS again tomorrow.”

Gibbs nodded.

“Maybe by then we’ll figure this out.”

Ziva nodded, then headed for the stairs.

“In that case, I think I will go back to the office. Perhaps there is something we have overlooked.”


	12. In Another Land

Buffy glared as the vampire dusted. They hadn’t expected to actually find any vampires in Highgate. While it was still a working cemetery, it didn’t have very many fresh graves. There were generally only one or two funerals a week, and mostly for older people. Yet somehow they’d still managed to stumble on a rising fledge.

Faith had all but fallen over laughing, leaving Buffy to handle it. On the bright side, it gave her a chance to work out some of her frustration. They’d really come for the atmosphere. It was practically second nature by now in both senior Slayers and the Scoobies when they were upset. Going for a walk in a cemetery was almost like being back home in Sunnydale, but usually with fewer vampires and lower risk of untimely death.

Faith folded herself into a sitting position on a nearby tombstone as Buffy brushed the dust off her jeans.

“Seriously, the one time we come here not looking for vampires there’s a vamp?” she snickered. “How many times have we patrolled this place and come up with nothing?”

“Only every other time we’ve been here,” Buffy replied with a hint of exasperation. Her brief workout hadn’t done much for her irritation level. “Typical, though.”

“You sound so British when you say that. You’ve got the accent down and everything. I wonder if Giles has noticed?”

Buffy glared.

“Sorry, B, but it’s true. And not exactly a bad thing- you’ve been based over here longer than Sunnydale by now.”

Buffy shrugged.

“Still think of California as home. At least, I did. Now I’m not sure where home is.”

Faith nodded.

“Yeah, about that… with the Slaying part over, you feel like talking about what’s really bugging you? I mean, we could be sleeping right now.”

Buffy’s shoulders sagged.

“I know. I should be getting a good night’s rest even though there are no minis underfoot that I’m setting a bad example for. But…”

Faith waited. It had taken her several years to get the hang of it, but she knew what to do when Buffy acted like this. Sooner or later, B would give it up and share what was really on her mind. But if you badgered her, she’d clam up.

“I guess I’m just nervous,” Buffy said. “I mean, it’s all so weird, even for us. Suddenly I have a father who’s not Hank and is presumably still alive somewhere. That might not be so bad. But if the lack of paperwork for her is anything to go by, the monks didn’t worry about the wider world when they sent Dawn to me, so he probably doesn’t know about Dawn, and I’m in not the little girl he lost. What if it’s too much for him to handle?”

Faith sighed.

“You’re doing it again, B.”

“Doing what?”

“Focusing on everyone else so you don’t have to think about your own issues. You’re worrying about Dawn, because your real pops might reject her. You’re worrying about him flipping out because the Slayer thing isn’t a little detail. What about you, Buffy? What do you think about all this?”

Buffy leaned against a sculpture of angel beseeching heaven.

“I still need time to wrap my head around it... I don’t know what to think. I mean, I guess it explains Hank walking away and never looking back- if he knew we weren’t really his responsibility it makes a lot more sense. I can understand him running away from the world we live in. Most people would if they had the choice.”

Much as she tried not to be bitter about it, Buffy couldn’t help the note that crept in. The last time she’d spent any time with Hank had been the summer after she killed Angel- the summer she’d tried to run away from being the Slayer. It hadn’t worked. She’d ended up on her own within a week.

“What do you remember about your real dad?” Faith asked quietly.

“Those memories… Family was everything. I was his little girl, his princess,” Buffy said softly. “But that girl is gone. Kelly hasn’t existed in a long time, and she isn’t coming back. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to go back to being anything like I was then. I’ve lived this life for longer than I lived that one.”

“You don’t have to try to be that girl, B,” Faith said. “No one expects you to. Just be you.”

“Not much choice,” Buffy said wryly. “I don’t know how to be anything else. But I don’t think my dad is going to understand.”

“You think he’s still going to be looking for his princess,” Faith said, starting to get what was really stressing Buffy about the situation.

Buffy nodded.

“Why wouldn’t he be? The people we lose don’t age in our memory. I’m sure he’s still picturing a nine year old when he thinks of his daughter. I don’t know how they kept him from coming after me all this time, because if he knew where I was, he would have. But if this is going to work at all, I have to find a way to make him understand he can’t protect me anymore.”

“You’re worried if you give him half a chance, he’s going to try to anyway,” Faith said. “Which would probably go unbelievably badly.”

Buffy nodded.

“How do you tell a Marine he can’t take care of his family?” she asked. “Of course, that’s assuming he wants anything to do with us. Twenty years is a long time. For all I know, he’s moved on. He’s probably remarried and has kids younger than us thinking about college and a wife who’s going to be completely thrown by his missing daughter showing up.”

Faith snorted.

“You think he got himself a shiny new family and isn’t going to be bothered about what happened to you? Right, B. Don’t tell Giles, cause I’d hate for him to have a heart attack on my account, but I did some research earlier. Parents of missing children don’t move on. They stay put. A lot of them keep the same house and same phone number. Just in case. Hoping maybe they’ll be the lucky one in a million whose kid turns up still alive years later.”

“Even if he hasn’t moved on, it’s still been twenty years of life lived separately for both of us,” Buffy said sadly. “It won’t be as easy as showing up and hugs and tears and everything’s great, even without trying to explain to him that he has two daughters instead of one.”

“Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see where this goes,” Faith said. “You sound like you’re ready to give up before you even try. The Council took a lot from you, B. You can deny that to most people- hell, to almost everyone else- but I know how it was. You’ve given up just about everything you can give at one point or another, and the most you’ve gotten in return was being voted class protector at SHS and the post-Initiative cleanup crew agreeing to leave you the hell alone. Maybe this is the Powers finally giving something back. You gotta admit, it’s the least they could do.”

Left unsaid was that it was also more than Faith had ever gotten.

“What about Dawn?”

Faith paused.

“What is your dad like? What do you remember?”

Faith watched as Buffy’s face softened. It was the polar opposite of what mention of Hank did. Privately, she thought that whether B wanted to admit it or not, now that she remembered, she missed her daddy.

“He was great. He loved spending time with me and my mom. When we went on vacation, it was us time, not spend the whole time on the phone with the office time, and when he had friends over, I didn’t have to be some model child. It was ok to be myself. When he was deployed, I made tapes to send him so I could talk to him. He promised he’d come home as soon as he could- and he never broke promises.”

Faith nodded.

“One hundred eighty degrees from Hank. So why are you expecting him to react the way Hank would?”

Buffy chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“I don’t know. Habit, I guess.”

“Quit driving yourself nuts worrying. Your mom seemed pretty sure you were going to see him, and she seemed to think it was going to be ok. And I can’t imagine the guy you’re describing getting his long lost daughter back and going ‘wait, I didn’t sign up for a package deal’ over little D. So give it a shot. If he turns out to be an asshole, well, you tried.”

“I hope he’s not.”

Buffy had spoken so quietly she sounded like a little kid. Faith thought that it was like the girl she’d been once upon a time had come out to play for a minute.

“I hope so, too, B. Especially since those damn Navy cops will probably be telling him about Dawn and maybe even doing introductions before we get there. Now come on, let's get some sleep before we have to head for the airport.”

\---

Giles was thankful it had been decided that coming to London tonight was a better idea than going from Council headquarters to the airport in the morning. The surviving remnants of the old Council archives were in London, not to mention a private contact list that he kept at his property. With Buffy, Willow, and Xander staying at Faith’s flat, it was safe for him to do some research of his own before leaving for Washington.

He had been reluctant to say so in front of the children, but the time frame of Buffy’s abduction had made him recall some of Travers’ more extreme tactics, and the furious undeclared war raging at the higher levels of the Council over the issue around that time. He wanted to ascertain before he faced a presumably angry father whether or not this was one more sin of the old Council he would be called to answer for.

The trouble, of course, was finding anyone else who had been around and high enough in the organization at that time who could answer his questions. He himself had been only a junior Watcher in those days, assigned to the British Museum. Once he was named Watcher to the Slayer and assigned to Sunnydale, he’d been granted access to the archives, but he’d had no reason at that point to delve into the Council’s internal politics. By the time he had reason, Travers had moved many of the most interesting files to headquarters, where he could personally control access to them.

Buffy’s actions had caused a considerable shakeup in the Council, but it was the First’s vicious war of attrition culminating in the destruction of the main Council building that had really decimated the ranks of the old stalwarts- and obliterated many of the records he might have found helpful in the present situation.  
Giles flipped through his index, finally settling on one name in particular. He could only pray the old git would actually answer the phone… happily, the man was even more of a Luddite than he himself had been at his worst, and so unlikely to have anything as modern as caller ID.

“Good evening, I’m sorry to disturb you. No, don’t hang up. Of course this is not a polite social call- at this hour of the night? I’m well aware of your feelings about the Council. But you’re the only person I know of who might be able to answer my questions, and I need answers. You were Travers’ loyal lackey in those days, so you should be able to tell me- did the Council attempt to abduct a Potential from a Marine base in California? It would have been in 1991. Of course there is a reason I’m asking. What will I give you?”

Giles paused for a moment, trying to recall if this particular contact was aware of his Ripper days. If memory served, the man did know. He let the silence draw out a beat longer- just enough for it to be menacing.

“I’ll do you the favor of not coming to ask the question in person. Or sending one of the girls to ask. Many of them would be so happy to meet one of Quentin’s dear friends… there might even be a fight over who gets to claim such a sought-after assignment.”

He tried not to take satisfaction in the sniveling at the other end of the line.

“Yes, I rather thought you might.”

\---

Gibbs picked up the phone on the third ring. It had better be good, or he was going to tear DiNozzo a new one for calling after midnight- and it had to be DiNozzo. McGee had come a long way from the timid boy he’d been when he joined the team, but he still wasn’t brave enough to wake the boss.

“Hello?” he knew there was an edge to his voice.

There was silence at the other end of the line.

“Hello?” he repeated. Still no response.

“DiNozzo, this better not be your idea of a joke,” he snapped. “It’s 1am!”

“I’m terribly sorry, I have a wrong number,” a woman said.

The call was abruptly disconnected before he could reply. The slight British accent made him think it had probably been an international wrong number, which would explain the late hour. It was already morning in Europe.

He wouldn’t have thought anything of it had he not remembered that Dawn Summers said she and her sister lived in England. He punched the buttons to dial the last incoming call. He waited, trying not to get his hopes up, but the phone did nothing but ring.

\---

Dawn stared at the laptop on the kitchen table. Ok, so she wasn’t the hacker Willow was, but she had picked up a few things over the years. How hard could it be to hack into a government agency?

“You know it’s a bad idea,” Graham told her, not for the first time that evening. “Wait until Willow gets here- it’s less than twenty-four hours. She can probably waltz in and out of NCIS’s systems without them noticing a thing. Unless you’ve got some skills you never mentioned before, you’ll get caught.”  
Dawn pouted, trying not to glare at her boyfriend for being so damn reasonable.

“I want to know where Buffy’s really from. Where I’m really from. Who our parents are. And how the hell did we end up in Sunnydale?”

What she didn’t say out loud was that she also wanted to know if Mom had been her real mother or not. If the monks didn’t know Buffy was really someone else, maybe she and Buffy weren’t actually related biologically. Just because the monks had sent the Slayer a sister didn’t mean they had to be biological siblings. Faith was every bit as much their sister despite having not sharing genetics with them. Maybe Joyce was her mother but not Buffy’s. Having a father who wasn’t Hank Summers wouldn’t be so bad, but she didn’t want her mother to be some woman she’d never met who had never known her.

“I thought you ended up in Sunnydale because Joyce thought it was a good idea after Buffy got expelled from Hemery,” Graham said.

“You know what I meant,” Dawn replied, rolling her eyes.

“You meant how did you end up in California,” he replied. “Easy, your father was a Marine. He was probably stationed at Pendleton. Next question?”

“Where are we really from? And why did the Navy investigators do DNA testing on my locket?”

The look on Graham’s face said plainly that he had no answers to either of those questions, and knew perfectly well that her list of questions was considerably longer.

“Dawn, it’s 2 in the morning. Don’t you think you should maybe give it a rest? Since you’re determined to keep playing reindeer games with NCIS, you might want to get some sleep. Isn’t there a rule about that?”

“Pshaw,” Dawn retorted. “As long as I get 3 hours, caffeine will keep me going. Wait, did you say two?”

“Why is two special?” Graham asked warily. He’d been dealing with a heavily caffeinated and increasingly hyper girlfriend all night, and was already regretting mentioning the time.

“Because that means it’s past 7:30 in Rome, which is when Lara’s flight was supposed to land. So I can call her. Her mother was going to pick her up from the airport, and Lara is finding out if she can tell us anything about why the Council didn’t know about Buffy.”

“And she’s going to tell you this over the phone?” Graham asked skeptically.

He had dealt with the Council long enough to know that the really interesting conversations either involved magic or face to face, and details about what the Council had or hadn’t known about the senior Slayer definitely fell in the category that did not get talked about on the telephone.

Dawn deflated slightly.

“You have a point. But I can still call her!”

Graham sighed and headed for his bedroom. There was clearly no reasoning with Dawn, who was showing no signs of calming down enough to sleep anytime soon, and one of them needed to be well rested in the morning.

Dawn punched Lara’s number and was immensely cheered when her friend picked up at the first ring.

“You are very impatient,” Lara said, with no preamble. Despite the blunt greeting, she sounded amused.

“Wouldn’t you be?” Dawn asked.

“Quite probably,” Lara agreed. “I have been talking to Mamma. She is thinking about it, and she believes there was a girl in California, but she was killed in a car crash before they could extract her. Once they confirmed her death, they did not show any further Potentials in the area right up until your sister’s Calling. She is trying to remember the name now. If she does, I will text you. Can you sleep now?”

“Probably not,” Dawn said wryly, “but consensus is I should try to anyway.”

“Consensus is sensible, even if you aren’t. Go sleep. I will text you later- and by later I mean your morning or afternoon. Do not stay up thinking it will be soon. Oh- and you may tell your sister my mother would like to meet with her when convenient.”

Dawn grinned. Getting Lara to work with the Council was great, but getting Adriana Doria to agree to talk to them was nothing short of phenomenal. She’d worked with the Council long enough and at high enough levels to know where all the bodies were buried, including some from before Giles’ time. There was an upside to her awful, terrible, no-good Tuesday.

Dawn paused, reviewing what she had just said to herself. Maybe everyone was right and she should put down the coffee and go sleep…


	13. Negative Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Gibbs arrived at NCIS early. Dawn Summers was supposed to be coming in again, and he wanted to catch McGee before she arrived- assuming she did. He wouldn’t be surprised at this point if she didn’t show.

There was no sign of McGee, but Ziva was slumped at her desk, head down. She showed every sign of having been there all night.

“Ziva,” he said gently, touching her shoulder.

As he’d expected, she shot upright, instantly on the alert.

“Gibbs! What time is it?” she demanded.

“Seven,” he replied. “What was so important that you didn’t go sleep in your bed?”

“I was checking into Kelly and Shannon’s accident,” she replied. “Look at this, Gibbs. Look at where the van was when the driver was shot!”

Gibbs looked, even though he practically knew the investigation report by heart- and saw what Ziva was seeing. The van had been at a T-intersection in an area that only ever saw light traffic, facing a concrete wall.

“You don’t think it was chance that the driver was shot here,” he said.

Ziva shook her head.

“If eliminating Shannon was the sole objective, the van’s route had already passed several places that would suit that purpose, and would also have been an easier shot from the sniper’s likely location. Moreover, if the goal was simply to eliminate her, it would have been more effective to shoot her instead of the driver, or to dispose of both when she reached her destination. If they were able to observe the van accurately enough to pick an ideal location, they would also have been able to track it to the safe house. Drug cartels are not usually shy about eliminating threats to their operations, so why be so roundabout in this case? Why use a sniper?”

Gibbs looked at her, shocked by the implication.

“Kelly was who they were after all along, not Shannon.”

“You said yourself that this organization will stop at nothing to gain control of a girl they have targeted. If you wish to abduct a child from a Marine base, what better way than to stage the child's death? No one will be searching for a child who is dead and buried. With your wife already under threat from the Reynosa cartel, it would have been simple for whoever was behind this to cover their tracks.”

“They didn’t just take advantage of the hit, they set it up,” Gibbs mused. “They contact the cartel’s cleanup man Offer him a bonus if the hit the cartel has already ordered happens on their terms. His bosses won’t care as long as Shannon can’t testify, and with the two people who could tell NIS the dead girl wasn’t correctly identified dead, whoever took Kelly is a ghost.”

“Precisely. If they were being cautious, they dealt with the shooter through an intermediary so he could not identify them. Unless the shooter talks, no one would be the wiser that he was not acting solely on behalf of the cartel. Of course, NIS’s leading suspect has been missing almost since the moment he crossed back into Mexico after the shooting, so it seems likely that whoever arranged this made sure there would be no one left to talk.”

Gibbs’ head spun. Tracking down Pedro Hernandez had been easy once he was south of the border. Almost too easy, but that hadn’t occurred to him until later- by which time he hadn’t been inclined to question it. He’d wanted to put that whole chapter of his life behind him.

Now it sounded a lot like he’d been led straight to Hernandez by people who wanted to make sure he had no chance of tracking down his daughter if he ever realized she wasn’t dead. Bastards had used him to tie up their loose end.

“Gibbs?” Ziva asked. “How did they identify Kelly as a target in the first place?”

“I don’t know, Ziva, but I intend to find out.”

\---

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Graham said, not for the first time that morning. As he’d halfway expected, Dawn’s late-night exuberance had evaporated in the harsh light of morning. She was now running on too little sleep, and she had exhausted her preferred coffee blend in the previous evening’s binge.

“No, I do, actually,” Dawn said wearily. “But thanks for worrying.”

“Why?” he demanded. “You’re clearly not comfortable with the situation, and they have no grounds to compel you to cooperate with their investigation. You should have just pulled the Council or Riley in to shut it down in the first place.”

Dawn sighed. Graham had been irritable all morning- not entirely because she’d kept him up until three- and had all but refused to drive her to the Navy Yard to get her to reconsider.

“I’m not sure. Just a feeling. I know there’s more to this than we’ve found out yet. So I’ll play along, at least until Willow gets here. Then if I still have nothing, she can hack in and see what they aren’t saying. Like Giles said yesterday, I can tap out whenever I want to. I feel a lot better knowing that.”

“Ok, fine, I’ll drop you off. If you do decide to tap out, call me and I’ll be there to pick you up in no time flat.”

“Not staying today?” Dawn asked, half teasing, but half hoping he’d change his mind.

“No, much as I’d like to, I have to finish up evaluations for the new transfers,” Graham said with a grimace. “It’s always the same- they’re all top notch and come to us from special forces, so they think they’re badass until the first op.”

Dawn snickered. While she hadn’t been old enough to see much of the Initiative, she’d worked with Riley’s unit once or twice since the fall of Sunnydale. The new guys were usually easy to spot. They were the ones who looked a little shell-shocked when their first real demon came at them.

“How many of them pee themselves when they see that vampires are real?”

Graham smothered a laugh.

“More than would care to admit to it,” he said, holding the door for her as they left his apartment.

After the obligatory caffeine pit stop, Dawn toyed with her coffee on the ride to the Navy Yard, trying hard to put her finger on what was bugging her about NCIS, besides their obvious fixation on her sister. She knew there was something she was missing.

Dawn smiled at the guard as Graham passed over their IDs at the Navy Yard security check, and then abruptly paled as he pulled into the parking lot.

“What if they won’t let me leave today?” she demanded. “Like you said, I might be kidnapped, too. Maybe yesterday was really just about stalling for time while they tried to contact our birth parents and get them here? What if they refuse to allow me to leave the building?”

Graham shook his head decisively.

“If they try anything like that, they’re overstepping their bounds big time. They’re not allowed to do that. You’re an adult. You tell them ‘I want my lawyer NOW’ and then call me or Riley. We’ll pull whatever strings we have to if your sister and Giles aren’t on the ground yet. If they are…”

Graham trailed off suggestively, and Dawn had a delightful vision of her sister persuading Giles to let her storm the Navy Yard. Between Buffy, Faith, Xander, and Willow, that would be a rather spectacular assault. Giles wouldn’t really ok such a thing, of course- he’d just dial the President and the NCIS director would get an angry phone call asking him just what the hell was going on in his agency. But it was nice to imagine.

“Good luck,” Graham said as Dawn climbed out. “Chin up- don’t let them see you’re nervous. They can smell fear.”

“Great,” Dawn muttered. “That puts them right up there with all the other nasties I deal with.”

The agent she’d talked to the previous day met her at the elevator and did his best to put her at ease with small talk as he lead her up to the same interview room as they’d used yesterday. They were intercepted halfway there by a tall Goth chick with a lab coat. Dawn blinked, but no, she hadn’t finally found her overdose point for caffeine- NCIS really did have a lab tech who wore four inch platforms and a dog collar to work.

“You’re here! Oh my god, this is-“

“Miss Summers, this is one of our lab techs, Abigail Sciuto,” McGee broke in, looking slightly irritated. “Abby! Don’t you have someplace to be?”

Picking up on the edge in his voice, Dawn glanced from one to the other. She definitely got the vibe that there was more to Abigail Sciuto running into them than her being on her way somewhere.

“Um, hi?” she offered with a tentative smile. “Yes, I’m here. Are you the person I’m supposed to be working with to create the sketch of the guy who smacked me around?”

Dawn had no idea McGee was glaring warningly at Abby from behind her back.

“Oh, right, you’re here for the sketch!” Abby exclaimed. “No, I just wanted to meet you. Because it was so brave what you did trying to help that poor Marine. Most witnesses would have just been freaking out at that point!”

Dawn wasn’t buying that, not least because Ms. Sciuto was right up there with Andrew in the really bad liar category, but she decided to go with it. It was sort of endearing how she relied on sheer enthusiasm to cover her lapse.

“I just did what I could. It didn’t really accomplish much.”

“No, I’m sure it made a huge difference to Corporal McCarthy,” Abby replied earnestly. “He had someone there with him at the end. I’m sorry, Agent McGee, I know you’re busy. I just really, really wanted to see Miss Summers.”

With that baffling pronouncement, the tall Goth squeezed Dawn’s hand before she stood aside to let them pass. Dawn couldn’t help glancing back at her as McGee continued down the hall, and found that Abby was still watching her, all but jumping up and down with excitement.

Yeah, she thought, chalk one up for Graham’s theory about child abduction. No one gets that excited about a witness.

“Agent McGee, can I ask you a question?” Dawn said as she sat down in the interview room, glancing around as she did.

“Sure, Dawn, fire away,” he replied.

“Was someone else observing my interview yesterday?”

\---

Down in the bullpen, DiNozzo groaned.

“Come on, probie! You’re a trained NCIS agent and you can’t come up with a better answer then ‘um’?”

Ziva frowned.

“He did not actually say ‘um’, Tony,” Ziva observed. “He just… froze.”

“Knock it off, both of you,” Gibbs ordered. “I want to hear what’s going on in there, not down here.”  
McGee, fumbling to recover from the unexpected question, told Summers that since she had arrived early, it would be a few minutes before the sketch artist joined them.

He then proceeded to question her about what had happened in Quantico the other night, as if that really were the main reason she was at NCIS today. Gibbs could see Dawn relax somewhat as the interview ran more along the lines of what she had been expecting yesterday, but she was clearly still puzzling over why the interview was being observed.

Her answers to McGee’s questions were calm, and mostly truthful. Watching objectively, though, Gibbs noticed what had bothered Ziva in the first place. There were occasional hesitations, which might at first glance seem to be Summers trying to remember what had happened, but to a trained observer looked more like Summers deciding how much she could safely say.

Ducky’s theory about their suspects would explain that hesitation- Summers was probably not authorized to tell them about vampires. Colonel Finn hadn’t divulged anything about his unit’s mission, and Gibbs would bet that the ok to tell NCIS anything on the subject had to come from on high. It would explain Miller’s caution yesterday and his need for a JAG lawyer, and specifically one who worked with his unit- there was a fine line between operational security and raising suspicion.

When the sketch artist finally arrived, McGee left the woman to work with Summers and excused himself.

He looked flustered when he arrived in the bullpen.

“Boss, I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting her to ask that. I’m not sure why she did- I think Abby might have weirded her out a little.”

“Abby?” Gibbs demanded, puzzled. “When did Abby talk to her?”

“She was hanging around in the hallway earlier,” Ziva said.

“She was waiting to meet Dawn,” McGee told them. “I’m sure after the DNA results, she couldn’t pass up a chance to see your daughter. She covered by saying she wanted to meet her because it was so brave of her to try to help Corporal McCarthy, but I don’t think Dawn bought that. I just didn’t expect her to put it all together so fast.”

“Put all what together, McToast?” DiNozzo asked skeptically.

“She knows we’re interested in her for more than just her witness statements about Tuesday night,” McGee replied. “She’s not dumb, Tony.”

“No,” Gibbs agreed, watching the girl in question on the screen as she directed the sketch artist to change something slightly.

“She’s not. But I doubt she’s figured out what we’re looking at. McGee, I doubt this sketch is going to take very long- Summers’ witness account was concise, I expect her description will be, too. When the artist is finished, keep her busy until I get up there with Ducky.”

“Sure, Boss. Why Ducky?”

“Because I want someone with psych training there when we try to explain the results of the DNA analysis to her,” Gibbs replied. “I don’t expect she’s going to be too happy about it- and that’s if she believes us.”

“How do I keep her busy?”

Gibbs glared at him. Sometimes he wondered how McGee made it through MIT when he asked such obvious questions.

“Ask her if she’s got questions, and if she does, go ahead and answer them. Hell, talk about anything you want- tell her about your next book if she’s a fan. Just make sure she doesn’t leave.”

With that, he headed down to autopsy. He wanted Ducky there not just for his psychological training, but also for moral support. Facing down an adult daughter he hadn’t known existed forty-eight hours ago was more nerve wracking than being in a war zone.

\---

Buffy knew she was not really an ideal travel companion for transatlantic flights at the best of times, but she was surprised how patient the others were being with her today. She was about ready to crawl out of her skin from the suppressed energy that normally would get worked off slaying whatever demons happened to be foolish enough to get in her way. Sadly, Slaying was not an option for in-flight entertainment.

She really shouldn’t have called. But Faith’s words had burrowed into her brain and she’d had to try. When she’d gone on a coffee run before they headed to the station, she’d ducked into a phone box and dialed her old home number.

Her dad had picked up. Cranky- she’d realized belatedly that the time difference meant she’d probably woken him up- but definitely him. It was only then that she’d realized she hadn’t thought about what to say if he answered.

She’d babbled something about a wrong number and hung up. She’d been halfway down the block when the phone started ringing again. She didn’t have the guts to go back and answer.  
She should have. It had been the only thing she’d thought about since.

“B, give it a rest. Meditate or something,” Faith muttered. “Plane’s not going to fly any faster no matter how badly you’re bouncing in your seat. Keep it up and you just might bounce hard enough to put a hole in the ceiling or end up down below with the baggage.”

“I want to be there now,” Buffy said, aware as she did that she sounded like a petulant child. “And don’t tell me to take a nap. I don’t want any more cryptic dreams. I want to know for sure what’s going on.”

“Will could-“

“Not in mid-air, she can’t,” Willow said firmly. “Wait until we’re on the ground. You managed to sleep last night.”

Faith snorted.

“Yeah. For like an hour. After we went patrolling.”

Willow glared. This was the first she’d heard of patrolling last night. Considering they hadn’t even arrived at Faith’s flat until 1:30 in the morning, she was surprised Buffy had bothered sleeping at all. From the sounds of it, Faith hadn’t- which probably explained how she’d been able to sleep for most of the flight until Buffy’s constant fidgeting woke her up.

“You’re not going to be any help to anyone if you’re strung out from not sleeping. I swear, the two of you need regular reminders about rule 28 as much as any of the trainees.”

Faith shrugged off the not-quite-scolding. ‘Evil never sleeps, but Slayers need to’ had been one of Dawn’s contributions to the rules. It had been added after a bustup between D and B that had involved frayed tempers due to lack of sleep during apocalypse season five or six years back.

“Relax. We’ll be on the ground in another couple hours, and by the time we are, D can give us the full rundown on what the Navy cops hit her with this morning. I still don’t get why she feels like she has to play ball with them anyway.”

Xander sighed.

“Misplaced sense of compassion. She’s only ever dealt with Sunnydale and Cleveland cops- people under the influence of Hellmouths, not competent investigators. She probably figured it would be a good idea to steer them away from the real culprits so they didn’t end up as tonight’s entree.”

Buffy shook her head irritably.

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is I know she’s with them right now, and I can’t do anything to help her from here. This was a mistake. We should have travelled Wicca Express.”

“Too late now,” Xander pointed out. “I’ll grant you most first class passengers are pretty self-involved, but even they might notice half a dozen people disappearing mid-flight.”

“It may in fact be a good thing that Dawn is occupied at NCIS,” Giles said, entering the conversation.

“How so, G-man?”

Giles let the detested nickname pass without comment.

“If Dawn is with NCIS, she is not out and about as she would otherwise be. This means that those who targeted her earlier in the week will find it much more difficult to do so again. They can hardly walk into a secure facility in broad daylight.”  
Buffy actually brightened at that.

“Ok, so there is one upside to the nosy Navy cops.”

“There’s also the possibility Dawn may be able to find out more information,” Willow pointed out. “I mean, NCIS don’t know that she knows what’s going on. So they may let something slip.”

Buffy’s shoulder sagged.

“This is really saying that you all want me to take a nap, isn’t it?”

“Fraid so, best bud o’ mine,” Xander told her. “Willow has a point- you’re going to be off your game tonight if you don’t get some shuteye, and if Dawn’s right about this crew, we’ll all need to be sharp.”

Buffy took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. Faith grinned as she recognized the signs of B starting one of the mindcalmers they’d both been taught.

“If you’re napping, so am I,” she announced. “Someone wake me around Baltimore, k?”

“Wake you in an hour,” Xander repeated. “Got it.”

\---

The sketch didn’t take long. Summers was evidently as good at descriptions as Gibbs had expected.  
By the time McGee got back up, the sketch artist was on her way out. She handed him a hardcopy of her results. McGee gulped as he got a look at it- you could tell just from the face that the guy was not someone to mess with.

When McGee entered the interview room, he found Dawn staring at her phone, an odd expression on her face.

“I have a question for you, Agent McGee,” she said, before he could say anything.

Her previously pleasant, cheerful manner had evaporated. She was serious, but there was something else in her tone he couldn’t quite place- an undercurrent of puzzlement mixed with something far more intense.

“Dawn, you’ve been extremely helpful with our questions, so I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have.”

“You found out about Buffy through DNA analysis, didn’t you?”

McGee tried not to let his shock show. How had she…?

“Yes, actually we did. Why do you ask?”

Dawn ignored his question.

“Did you run a DNA analysis on me too?”

McGee prayed fervently that Gibbs would arrive with Ducky. He had a sinking feeling things were about to go badly.

“We did,” he confirmed.

“What did my DNA results show?”

“That you and your sister are full siblings, as expected,” McGee replied immediately, thankful that there was a truthful answer he could go with on this one without having to explain in full.

Just when he was about to relax, Dawn followed up.

“What else did Buffy’s results show?”

McGee swallowed. This was not good.

“That your sister was the victim of a crime in 1991,” he admitted, hoping that either Gibbs would walk in or Dawn would leave it at that. “That’s why I was asking you questions about her yesterday.”

“What was the crime?”

“An agent was shot and killed while driving a witness of a crime who was under NIS protection to a safe house. Your sister was a passenger in the vehicle.”

“Let me guess- she was declared dead.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, and Dawn was sounding more and more like her father with every question. Then she looked him full in the eye, and McGee really wanted Gibbs to show up to deal with his daughter, because she also looked a lot like Gibbs right now- a very _angry_ Gibbs. At least Dawn didn’t have a weapon…

“What happened to my mother?”

The question was delivered in a flat voice that held the restrained fury of an avalanche behind it.

“She was killed in the resulting crash.”

“Thank you. That will be all, Agent McGee. We’re through here,” Dawn said quietly- too quietly.

McGee’s instinct was to back away slowly before the explosion, but he was pretty sure Gibbs would kill him if he did.

“No, wait, Miss Summers-“

“Any further questions you have may be directed to my lawyer.”

Dawn tossed a card on the table and moved for the door before he could react. She was gone by the time he stood up.  
He ran after her, but it turned out that Dawn was as observant of the building layout as she was about other things- the elevator doors had already closed by the time he got there.

“Oh, this is not good.”

“What’s not good, McGee?”

He froze. Of course Gibbs showed up now. Turning around, he found Gibbs and Ducky had just come up from autopsy. And of course, Tony was at his desk grinning like a loon at the sight of McGee about to get chewed out. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. McGee could practically hear what he was thinking.

“Boss, Dawn Summers left. I don’t know what happened, but somehow she knew about the DNA results.”

“What do you mean, she knew about the DNA?” Gibbs demanded.

“I came back in after the sketch artist finished, and she said she had a question for me,” McGee explained. “You told me to talk to her, answer any questions she had, so I said ok. She interrogated me about the DNA results for her and her sister, and then she asked me what happened to her mother.”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. The first two questions made sense. The last one implied she was aware that Joyce Summers was not her biological mother.

“What did you tell her, Timothy?” Ducky demanded.

“The truth- her mother was killed in the car crash after the NIS agent protecting her was shot. She had already guessed that her sister was presumed dead.”

Ducky looked appalled, but it was Gibbs that McGee was worried about.

“How could she have known that?” Ziva asked. “You questioned her about her sister yesterday, but she seemed puzzled as to why you were asking.”

McGee frowned.

“I don’t know. She had her phone in her hand…” he began, and then wanted to slap himself in the head as it hit him. He should have asked before Summers had a chance to get her questions in.

He dove for his computer and started keying in queries.

“I’m pulling up the local cell phone grid. No incoming calls, but there were about a dozen incoming text messages in the time frame Summers was in the room alone… these can be eliminated, because they’re going to NCIS-issued phones. These three are to agents’ personal numbers… that leaves this unidentified number as likely belonging to Dawn Summers. The message originated overseas - it was sent from Rome.”

Ziva raised an eyebrow.

“Can you get the message, McGee?” Gibbs barked.

The sound of furious typing was all the answer he needed. They all crowded around the screen as McGee pulled the message up.

It was only two words.

_Kelly Gibbs._


	14. Ghosts And Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Dawn was seething.

Getting to the airport had taken much longer than she’d expected. Why couldn’t they have flown into the airport that was right on the Metro instead of the one in outer Mongolia? She was relieved to find that her family were still in the Arrivals area- at least, most of them were.

“Dawnie!” Willow greeted her with a hug. She pulled back, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“What isn’t wrong?” Dawn demanded irritably.

“Tell us about it in the car,” Xander suggested. “Giles already has keys, we were just waiting for you.”

“Where’s Buffy?” Dawn asked.

“Headed out as soon as she got her bag,” Faith replied. “There was something she wanted to do. She’ll meet us at the house.”

“I’m really not in a mood to sit around,” Dawn said as Giles steered them toward the parking lot.

Faith clapped sympathetically on the shoulder.

“Well, it’s not like we can let you wander around unaccompanied until the special forces of darkness have been dealt with,” Willow said. She had her resolve face on, making it clear that house arrest was non-negotiable for the time being.

“Come on, ride into town with us, D,” Faith cut in, forestalling what she was sure would be an argument, “and tell us what’s bugging you. We’ll drop by your hotel so you can pick up your stuff and check out.”

Dawn’s eyes widened.

“Um, I probably shouldn’t go to the hotel. I kind of walked out of NCIS earlier, and even though I told them to direct further questions to my lawyer, I have a feeling that’s not going to be their Plan A- Graham totally called it about Buffy being a missing child, and these agents don’t strike me as the type who give up easily. The hotel is sure to be one of the first places they look for me. Followed by Graham’s place and Riley’s, since NCIS know I don’t know that many people in DC.”

Faith snickered as she slung her duffel bag into the trunk.

“Blocked from the boyfriend’s. And you haven’t even met your father yet!”

“Shut up, Faith,” Dawn said, but without any real bite.

“Not your best comeback, D. Don’t worry, we’ll check you out of your hotel. Giles can drop Red and me at the hotel and then you three can go straight to the house. We can catch a taxi once we grab your stuff. Did you leave much in your room?”

Dawn shook her head, clambering into the back seat between Faith and Xander. Willow took the front seat, leaving Giles to drive.

“I already grabbed some of my stuff yesterday when we stopped there on the way to the Navy Yard,” Dawn told them. “Didn’t think it was a good idea to leave anything important sitting around. My laptop’s at Graham’s, and so is anything hardcopy, but I can’t see NCIS going in there without a warrant. There’s just some clothes and my suitcase at the hotel. We could just leave it there.”

Faith waved that suggestion off.

“No worries, D, we’ll get your stuff. Not like the Navy cops will be looking for us. But what’s the story? Why’d you leave NCIS hanging?”

Dawn sighed and launched into a recap of what had happened that morning, starting with the encounter with the lab tech and concluding with her frustration at knowing her mother had been murdered.

“And it makes no sense at all, because last night I wanted no part of this woman. Joyce was my mother. She was the one thing in my life that was safe, you know?”

Everyone in the car did know- Joyce had been a safe haven for all of them.

“I didn’t want my mother to be some woman who never knew me,” Dawn continued. “It’s too weird. But now that it’s real… I want to deal with whoever killed her. We have to find out who was responsible for this.”

“Human world, human rules, Dawnie,” Willow reminded her.

“Yeah, except I don’t think it was the human world responsible for this,” Dawn retorted. “I mean, Buffy was-“

“Save that topic for the house, please,” Giles cut in from the driver’s seat. “We should discuss it when everyone is present. And I may have some new information on that subject. Did NCIS say anything about your father?”

He glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

Dawn shook her head.

“No, but then again, it’s not like they meant to say anything about my mother either. I think I got lucky that it was one of the younger agents dealing with me instead of the guy in charge. He wouldn’t have- oh, _shit_.”

She stopped, looking completely poleaxed.

“What?” everyone else in the car demanded in unison.

“Lara’s message said the dead Potential’s name was Kelly Gibbs.”

“That fits, Buffy said her mom called her Kelly,” Xander nodded. “And you’re right- if Lara’s mom knew about her, that pretty much puts the old Council at the top of the ‘who dunnit’ list.”

“I thought we were saving that for the house, Xander. Anyway, not important right now,” Dawn said.

She’d just been mentally reviewing what she’d seen of Agent Gibbs, and had realized that there just might have been a reason he and Buffy shared facial expressions.

“Ok, what is important?” Xander asked gamely.

“The the lead investigator on the Quantico murders is a Special Agent _Gibbs_. Somehow I don’t think NCIS had to call our father to tell him the good news.”

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“We are so far into rule 27 territory on this that it isn’t even funny,” Xander announced.

“Yeah. Anyone think it might be an idea to give B a heads up about this?” Faith asked.

“Why, where was she going?” Giles inquired.

The reply came from Willow, who looked mildly worried.

“She said she thought she remembered where she used to live, and she was going to check it out.”

\---

Buffy frowned at the house. It hadn’t changed much from what she remembered. New siding, new windows, and slightly better landscaping. No telling whether or not her father still lived there, though. Also no telling whether or not anyone was home.

She’d been sitting in the car, watching the house for fifteen minutes. Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it. Whatever shenanigans Dawn had pulled this morning could wait a little while longer. Willow had already texted once to say Dawn had arrived at the airport, so she knew her sister wasn’t in any serious trouble. She’d be on her way with the others to the DC Council house, which was where Buffy was headed after she finished this. Whatever ‘this’ was. She wasn’t even sure why she’d come.

She made a decision, and hopped out of the car. She walked up the front steps and knocked on the door before she lost her nerve. No answer- so probably nobody home. Oh, right, normal people worked during the day. So her dad was probably at work, wherever and whatever work was now. He couldn’t still be in the Corps- or could he?

Casually, like she had every right to be there, she walked around to the back yard. It hadn’t changed much either, but it was a lot less empty than she remembered- it was like looking at the ‘after’ of a before and after picture. But the raised bed was there, even if it was filled with shrubs now instead of her mom’s favorite flowers.

The shed door still opened despite the lock if you hit it in just the right spot, so getting a shovel was no problem. She didn’t have to dig long- it turned out that what was buried deep for an eight year old was pretty shallow by adult standards, never mind someone used to dealing with things buried six feet under.

Triumphantly, she pulled her prize free- a My Little Pony lunchbox, somewhat worse for the wear after twenty-odd years in the ground, but still in one piece. She filled the hole back in, brushing mulch over the disturbed soil, then put the shovel back in the shed, making sure to shut it properly.

Unless someone actually saw her, no one would know she’d been there.

She sat down on the back steps to open the time capsule. It was originally meant to be for her dad, for them to open together when he came home, but right now she felt like she needed these memories more than he did. It was almost like she was the one coming home from deployment- but her homecoming was years overdue.

The first thing that popped out was a yellow ribbon. She smiled sadly. Could her dad have saved her and her mother if he’d been there? She knew her dad. First things first- hide the women and the children. She remembered him saying that, and her mother laughing. It had been a joke, but there had also been a bedrock of seriousness under it. He would have never let anyone take her away.

And if he had been there, what would her life look like today? Would Dawn still be there? Even if she was, there would almost certainly be no Willow, no Xander. No Giles or Faith. As heartbreaking as it was to know she’d been ripped away from her family, Buffy couldn’t picture life without the family she’d lived, fought, and bled with ever since moving to Sunnydale. They’d been through so much together. These days, she’d even miss Andrew.

She returned to her time capsule. A painting she’d done when she was younger. Kid-sized dog tags, one that said ‘Kelly’ and one that said ‘Daddy’ that he had given her when she was four. She wasn’t sure if he had made them himself or bought it on base somewhere. A fortune teller- unfolding some of the flaps, she discovered the names of boys who would have been long forgotten if she hadn’t just regained her memories. Half of them were probably married with kids of their own by now. A Polly Pocket. A drawing Maddie had made for her. A photo- but it wasn’t the photo it should have been. It was something more precious.

Instead of her and Maddie here in the yard, this was a picture of a girl her age and her father. Her dad looked older than she remembered, and sadder. Buffy bit her lip. Clearly at some point fairly recently her dad had either discovered the time capsule, or been told about it by the only other person who had known. She looked at the photo again. Was that Maddie with her dad? It had to be.

She smiled, tracing a finger over the face in the photo. If she squinted, she could make the face match the little girl she remembered. Maddie looked a little bit stressed, but otherwise cheerful, and confident, and… normal. Exactly what she herself might have been if she’d been allowed to stay with her parents. If she hadn’t been a Potential who might someday be the Slayer.

With a sigh, she stood up. There was no use moping about what might have been. She had been a Potential, she was a Slayer, and she had a job to do tonight that didn’t involve Maddie or her father.

It was probably best if she didn’t contact Maddie. Let her continue to think her best friend was dead. Trying to pick up those pieces could only lead to bad things for Maddie. Buffy had seen enough people who got pulled into her world get hurt or killed over the years not to inflict it on her childhood best friend. One of them should have a happy, normal life.

Her father… It hurt to put it off, but she knew that duty had to come first. If he’d waited this long, he could wait until tomorrow, by which time hopefully the downside of having a Slayer for a daughter would be a little less immediate a threat. Between the familiar contents of the shed and the photo, she was sure her dad still lived here. She knew where to find him. And even if convincing him he couldn’t protect her would be a problem, at least as a Marine he knew how to look out for himself.

As she headed to the car, carrying her lunchbox, Buffy made one more decision. If Dawn was right, NCIS was probably telling their dad about her right now. She wanted him to know she meant to come home. She walked back up to the front door, and hung the yellow ribbon and her dog tags on the doorknob. She pulled off the ‘Daddy’ tag, leaving ‘Kelly’ and the chain for her father. It was both a sign and a promise- she was here, and she was coming back.

\---

Gibbs was trying not to snap at or headslap his team. McGee had phoned the gate immediately, but despite initiating a check of all vehicles exiting the Yard, there had been no sign of Dawn Summers.

“Um, boss-“

“Spit it out, McGee,” Gibbs growled.

McGee had been wearing the same hangdog expression ever since Summers’ departure, not that it was really his fault. Like he had told DiNozzo earlier, Dawn Summers wasn’t stupid. Gibbs would have been proud of her if he wasn’t so annoyed that she was using her intelligence to evade his team right now.

“Summers isn’t familiar with the Navy Yard,” McGee began.

“Which is why,” Ziva picked up the thread, nodding at McGee to put something up on the big screen, “it was clever of her to leave on foot. Knowing she was unfamiliar with the area, we did not expect that. So while we were checking vehicles, she walked to the Metro.”

“Ok, she took the Metro instead of a taxi. Smart girl. Where did she go?” Gibbs asked, trying hard to be reasonable.

“You’re not going to like this, boss,” DiNozzo warned him. “She caught the first train to L’Enfant, where she exited the Metro. Surveillance camera shows her getting on the shuttle to Dulles.”

Gibbs kept his expression as neutral as he could, but he felt sick. His daughter was running. She was heading to the airport and leaving. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to talk to her. She still had no idea the deadbeat who’d abandoned her and her sister wasn't her father. Kelly wouldn’t be coming, and might never know that he was doing everything he could to get her back now that he knew she was alive. He might never see either of them again.

“Ziva, you’re with me,” he ordered. “If she went directly to the airport, that means she left her luggage at her hotel. DiNozzo, McGee, check the passenger lists for all outgoing flights. I want to know where she’s going. Start with flights to the UK, we know she has ties there.”

“Already did, boss,” DiNozzo said. “Dawn Summers is not listed on any outbound flights. But Buffy Summers is on the passenger manifest of an inbound British Air flight from Heathrow.”

“Her sister is coming here?” Ziva demanded, her head snapping up.

Gibbs saw her glance at him.

“The flight landed about an hour ago,” McGee replied. “I also show her on the reservation list for rental cars at the airport. If she drives like Gibbs, she’s probably already in town.”

Gibbs fought the urge to slap McGee’s head for the crack about his driving.

“If her sister’s coming here, why is Dawn going to the airport?” Ziva wondered. “She has a phone.”

“I think I have an answer,” McGee said, his fingers busy on the keyboard as he spoke.  
Airport security footage popped up. It showed Dawn Summers walking into the arrivals hall, meeting a group of four.

“I want names, McGee.”

Passport scans appeared on the screen.

“Willow Rosenberg, Alexander Harris, Faith Lehane, and Rupert Giles.”

“All but Giles appear to have connections to Sunnydale, California,” DiNozzo observed. “Their passports were issued via the Sunnydale Disaster Recovery Commission.”

“Correction, Tony, all four have connections to Sunnydale, California,” Ziva said. “Rupert Giles was the librarian of Sunnydale High School. Since he is not an American citizen, his replacement passport was issued by the British consulate in Los Angeles.”

“Why would the high school librarian still be hanging out with his former students?” McGee asked, puzzled.

“I can think of three or four reasons off the top of my head, all of them creepy,” DiNozzo replied with unaccustomed seriousness.

“It gets better,” Ziva smirked. “Before he became a librarian, Sir Rupert Giles was the curator of the British Museum.”

Three gobsmacked expressions greeted that pronouncement.

“I want full background on all four,” Gibbs snapped. “Whatever there is to know about them- particularly what they’ve been doing since relocating after Sunnydale.”

“No prob- whoa.”

“What, McGee?”

“Information about these people is heavily restricted. Boss, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s like someone has sanitized everything about them- once you get beyond their dealings with the Sunnydale Disaster Commission, it’s almost a blank. They leave California for the UK and more or less drop off the grid. They're listed as employees of Guardian International, but that's about it. No addresses, no phones, bank statements, credit cards... none of it. They don't seem to use their passports very often, and I can't even find them in tax records!”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. Whoever or whatever Guardian really was, they weren’t very used to having anyone dig into their agents backgrounds. Hitting a big wall of blank just made them more interesting, not less.

“Keep digging, McGee. DiNozzo, see if you can figure out where Summers is heading- and if not, find out where that group went. You might to start by asking Colonel Riley Finn or Major Graham Miller.”

“Where are you going, boss?” McGee asked.

“To Summers’ hotel,” Gibbs said, not bothering to hide that McGee should have worked that one out for himself.


	15. All My Sisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Buffy tried not to fidget as she waited. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea after all. All this official stuff made her nervous, no matter how often Giles reminded her that it was part of her responsibility as Senior Slayer- and pointed out that some of the junior Slayers actually looked at it as a prerogative. She’d tried several times to use that to justify delegating dealing with government types, but they always wanted to talk to her or Faith- and Faith hated it even more than Buffy did.

Usually she did her best to leave dealing to officialdom to Giles. But the drive back into town had given her time to think, courtesy of DC’s ridiculous traffic, and she’d realized that two things needed to happen, and they needed to happen fast. So she’d put on her big girl pants and was doing what needed to be done.

First, NCIS needed to be told in no uncertain terms to back off. The vampires Dawn had described were not something civilians should tangle with, and if the Navy cops were foolish enough to go back down to Quantico after dark, it could get ugly. Thus her abrupt detour. NCIS were about to be _told_.

That had led to her second realization- if her dad was anything like her, and the memories coming back said he was, orders weren’t going to mean jack when it came to family. NCIS might back off, but he wouldn’t. Which meant she needed to make sure he had his attention focused on something else tonight. Damned if she knew what would get his attention, though… if someone had Dawnie, nothing and no one would distract her from getting her back. She couldn’t be sure the dog tag would be enough to keep him close to home.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the cuter of the two aides who had talked to her when she arrived walking back into the room. Even though he was smiling, she fought the urge to smooth her clothes and her hair. There were days she still didn’t feel like a real grownup, and this was one of them.

“Miss Summers? The President will see you now.”

\---

Faith was on the verge of laughter as she and Willow walked into the hotel lobby.

“Come on, admit it, it was funny,” she said. Noting the disapproval on the witch’s face, she tried again.  
“A little funny?”

“No, it wasn’t, Faith, the poor mini could have gotten in big trouble-“

Willow bit off the rest of what she meant to say when she saw Faith’s hand snap up and her mirth evaporate like someone had flipped a switch.

“Good thing we came straight here,” Faith said quietly. “Aren’t those the NCIS agents we’re supposed to look out for over by the front desk?”

Willow followed her gaze to the older man and dark-haired woman probably around their own age at the desk speaking to the manager. The woman’s back was to them, but she could see the man in profile. His hair was grey, and he was too far away for her to spot finer details like eye color, but Dawn was right- his expression was very much like Buffy’s when she was frustrated.

“I think so,” she said, already worrying. If his luck was anything like his daughter’s, their best move might be to just turn around and walk out now.

“Stairs,” Faith told her in an urgent undertone. “We can still grab D’s stuff, but we’ll need to move fast. It’s a good bet if we know about them, they know about us, too.”

Willow knew better than to argue. Not the time or the place.

Both women moved purposefully through the lobby, their pace brisk but not running. Running attracted attention. Brisk just meant you had someplace to be. The former drew the eye, the latter got ignored by everyone else going about their own business. It helped that Faith had stayed here quite a few times before, so she knew the layout of the building and could steer them straight to the nearest stairwell.

“How would they know about us?” Willow asked as the door to the stairs shut behind them.

“Come on, Red, you’re not the only hacker out there,” Faith replied, setting a pace that Willow could only just barely keep up with.

“No, but I am the one that buried our backgrounds under better security than the NSA’s servers,” Willow pointed out smugly.

“Fair enough,” Faith conceded without slackening her pace. “But they were still looking into us. Even if you didn’t leave them much to find, I doubt it would be too hard to find out that D’s name and yours overlap on passenger lists frequently, or that B and I travel as a team something like seventy percent of the time. It’s not rocket science, and like Colonel America and D’s boytoy keep warning us, these guys aren’t the Sunnydale Denial Squad. Show that cop a ‘barbeque fork’ autopsy report and I bet he’d tear the town apart looking for a real cause of death.”

When they hit Dawn’s floor, they didn’t bother with blending in- they jogged to her door, halfway down the hall between the stairs and the elevator. Faith dropped the keycard in the slot and the door popped open.

“You grab D’s stuff,” Faith said, “I’ll play lookout.”

“How long do you think we have?” Willow asked, snagging Dawn’s suitcase from the closet and tossing it onto the bed. Turning back to the closet, she grabbed the shoes and jacket that had been inside.

“Depends on if they saw us or not,” Faith told her, fiddling with the door before dropping back into the bathroom, where she pocketed D’s toothbrush and hairbrush. NCIS might not be witches, but no sense leaving extra bits of DNA floating around.

“If they didn’t see us,” Faith continued, “we’re fine. No way the management’s giving up a room key without a fight- the Council always puts us up in their hotels whenever we’re Stateside. There’s no way NCIS had time to dot their i’s and cross their legal t’s. With any luck, they’ll be arguing for a while and we can get out of here without a confrontation.”

“And if they did see us?”

Willow grabbed Dawn’s travelling outfit from the dresser she’d dumped it on, no doubt a casualty of a quick change before she headed out to meetings before yanking the dresser drawer open to make sure she hadn’t gotten as far as putting things away.

“Then they’ll be here any second,” Faith replied grimly.

\---

Gibbs tried not to pound on the desk in frustration. The manager was not being cooperative.

“I’m very sorry, sir, but Guardian are corporate clients with a longstanding relationship. If you want to enter Miss Summers’ room, I absolutely need to see a court order or have it authorized by someone in our legal department.”

Gibbs heard the message behind the words loud and clear: I’d really like to help, but I am not losing my job over this.

He’d decided to try the line that Summers was a material witness in a multiple homicide investigation and let the manager read into that what he wanted. Material witnesses could be taken into protective custody or detained as necessary. Most hotels would have been tripping over themselves at that point to let them into the room, trembling at the prospect of a murder investigation mucking up their hotel. It was bad for business. But the Embassera management had unexpectedly refused to play ball.

“Gibbs,” Ziva said quietly.

He turned around, reminding himself that it wasn’t the manager’s fault.

“What, Ziver?” he demanded.

“I just caught sight of someone who may have been Rosenberg heading toward the elevators,” she said. “Her appearance is quite distinctive. It is possible we are not the only ones who would like to get into Dawn Summers’ room.”

Gibbs moved away from the desk immediately. That would make sense. Summers wanted to avoid them, but she had yet to check out of her hotel, and it was a logical place for them to intercept her.

“Where’s the nearest staircase?”

She pointed left from the elevators.

“You go up the stairs,” Gibbs ordered. “If they think someone is looking for her, they may avoid the elevators on the way out. I’ll take the elevator.”

“We meet at Summers’ room?” she asked.

He nodded.

Luck was with him- an elevator opened almost as soon as he pushed the button. He arrived on the fifth floor before Ziva, and decided not to wait. If these people knew what they were doing, they could clear the room and be gone in only a few minutes.

Approaching the room, he saw the door had been left ajar, propped with the ice cooler. They must have thought that would allow them to hear anyone coming before they entered the room. He doubted they’d ever dealt with a Marine before.

He slipped his gun from the holster and edged into the room.

A slim redhead who could only be Rosenberg was hastily throwing clothes into a suitcase on the bed.

“Freeze!” he ordered. “Hands in the air!”

Before he could say anything else, the world abruptly went black.

\---

“Faith!” Willow snapped. “I can’t believe you were going to hit him! What if you broke him? Buffy would kill us!”

She launched a pillow at Faith’s head, which the Slayer deftly snagged one-handed.

Faith was inspecting their victim with near clinical detachment. She confiscated his weapon, making sure the safety was on, before easing the pillow underneath his head.

“Only if D didn’t beat her to it. But you can relax, Red, you got him first. Nice work. How long is he out for?”

“Ten minutes, fifteen at the most,” Willow replied. “Should give us plenty of time. And he’ll wake up feeling much better than if you’d put him out.”

“Good thinking. Now hurry it up. We need to get gone before his backup shows up.”

“Too late,” came a clipped voice from the door. “Put the weapon on the floor and kick it toward the window. Now stand back up.”

Faith silently complied, mentally calculating how best to get out of this situation. She glanced behind her. The dark-haired woman had her gun trained on Faith. If Willow froze the bullet, she could definitely take her…

But it turned out it wasn’t necessary. Guns had a funny way of making people overconfident. The woman made the mistake of coming within leg’s reach of Faith. She lashed out, knocking the gun out of the other woman’s hand. Faith felt the slight ripple of mojo that meant Willow had seen to it that the gun didn’t go off.

She backed away, scooping up the gun and turning it against its owner.

“Now why don’t we all just chill before someone gets hurt?” she asked reasonably.

\---

Ziva wanted to scream in frustration. It had been a long time since anyone had managed to get her gun away from her. It didn’t help to tell herself that the dark haired woman currently in possession of her service weapon had only gotten it because she’d taken her by surprise- Ziva did not believe in excuses. Although, on the subject of excuses, she was dying to hear why Gibbs had gone in without waiting for her. It was reckless.

She cursed silently as she recognized the woman holding her gun.

“Faith Lehane,” she said flatly.

“That’s me,” Faith smirked. “And you are…?”

“Ziva David.”

She was not pleased to see the flicker in Lehane’s eyes at the name David. She could tell her father’s name did not inspire any warm feelings in the other woman. She wondered when their paths had crossed.

“Where is Gibbs?”

Faith jerked her head over her shoulder.

“Would that be him? Didn’t really give him time for introductions.”

Following the general direction of Faith’s gesture, Ziva spotted Gibbs flat on his back on the floor.

“What did you do to him?”

Faith shrugged.

“Put him out of commission for the time being. I didn’t want any misunderstandings.”

“I need to check on him.”

Faith nodded, and backed away so that Ziva could get to Gibbs without passing in arm or leg’s reach of her. Neither woman took their eyes of the other. Ziva dropped to one knee, intending to check Gibbs’ pulse and breathing, but found it wasn’t necessary. It looked all for the world like he had suddenly decided to take a nap. Someone had even been kind enough to place a pillow under his head. His breathing was steady and even, and he was more relaxed than she could remember seeing him in a long time.

She rose, noticing the third woman in the room was trying her best to stay out of her line of sight.

“Willow Rosenberg,” Ziva said, demonstrating that it wasn’t working.

“Um, hi,” Willow replied, sounding slightly confused. “Faith? What now?”

“Well, let’s see. I’ve got Ziva’s service weapon, but there’s no guarantee she doesn’t have a backup,” Faith replied, holding up the gun. “And she’s pretty frustrated that she’s at a disadvantage, which means she’s likely to try something stupid if we give her too long to think. So now we should get going.”

Willow’s eyes widened. Ziva could tell from her reaction that Willow must have had a bad experience with guns in the past.

“What exactly are you doing here?” Ziva demanded, keeping her hands visible and trying to let Lehane think she had control of the situation. Since neither woman appeared to be a threat at the moment, she would at least try to do her job and gather information. If she could stall them long enough, Gibbs might recover.

“Just picking up a few things,” Faith replied, zipping up the suitcase and handing it to Rosenberg, who took it and edged toward the door.

Ziva frowned.

“That stays here,” she said. “It is evidence.”

Faith raised an eyebrow.

“Really? Looks like Dawn’s stuff to me,” she replied. “Which makes it none of your business.”

“You are wrong,” Ziva retorted, casting around for anything that might keep the women’s attention. “Are you aware that Hank and Joyce Summers are not Dawn’s biological parents?”

“We’ve become aware,” Willow said carefully, pausing by the door.

“That is her father,” Ziva told them, pointing at Gibbs. “You have no right to keep his daughters from him.”

Faith snorted.

“No one’s keeping anyone. If his daughters wanted to be here, they would be. And sorry, but still don’t see how it’s your business.”

Ziva bristled.

“Gibbs is like a father to me. That makes his daughters very much my business. There are some who would say it makes them my sisters. ”

Ziva realized as she said it that she would not mind having sisters. Nothing and no one could ever replace Tali and Ari, but it would be good to have a family again.

Faith nodded thoughtfully.

It wasn’t quite a challenge, but Ziva tensed anyway. She could tell by the way the other woman moved that she was dealing with a fellow fighter. And she was running out of options to keep them here.

“Here’s the thing, soldier girl,” Faith said, startling her. “They are my sisters. And unlike you, I’ve been the one standing right next to them for years. You didn’t even know they existed until a couple days ago. So you’ll pardon me if I think you might have questionable loyalties here.”

Ziva opened her mouth, but Faith cut her off.

“My only loyalty in this is to Buffy and Dawn. They say they want to see him, no problem. But they’re not ready to deal with their dad just yet. I back them.”

“We do what we have to for family,” Ziva murmured, bracing for the first blow as she considered how best to counterattack.

Faith sized her up and nodded slowly, like Ziva had passed some sort of test.

“You’re right, we do. So here’s the thing- you and I could throw down right now. I’d say you might just be able to give me a decent workout. But I’d win in the end, and if I’m not careful, the damage might be permanent. Best case, you’d meet your sisters the first time all bruised and battered- and they’d be pissed at both of us for letting it go down that way. Willow can verify that it wouldn’t go well for either of us.”

Willow obligingly shook her head, an almost comically exaggerated ‘that would be bad!’ expression on her face.

“What do you suggest?” Ziva asked cautiously.

“Look after Pops here. Get him checked out. Hopefully I didn’t bruise anything more than his ego- this was meant to be the easy way. Take him home, ok? And keep him out of trouble. Just for tonight. If all goes well, everyone will be more relaxed tomorrow and the girls he wants to see might be feeling up to it.”

Ziva nodded.

“He will want to know that Dawn is safe.”

Faith snorted again, but this time it sounded like she was holding back laughter.

“D’s as safe as she ever gets, don’t worry about her. Besides, she’s got a temper, and we’re talking her down from wanting to kill people right now.”

“Her mother,” Ziva said flatly.

Faith nodded.

“Perhaps it would help to tell her the killer has already been dealt with.”

Faith raised an eyebrow.

“I think at some point there will be a very interesting family meeting,” she said slowly. “Cause somehow I doubt it’s been fully dealt with yet. But you’re right, it would probably help D to know that some form of justice was served.”

Now it was Ziva’s turn to be surprised. But there was something else she had to ask before Faith left.

“What about Kelly?”

“Buffy,” Faith replied, stressing the name slightly, “has a full schedule today, and she’s got plenty of people with her who have her back. Don’t worry about her either. Just keep him out of trouble.”

“I cannot promise,” Ziva said, “but I will do my best.”

Faith nodded, as if that would have to suffice.

“I’ll give this back to you next time I see you,” she said apologetically. “Don’t worry, we don’t play with guns.”

She nodded toward the door, and Rosenberg walked sedately out, as if getting into armed standoffs with federal agents was something that happened on a regular basis. Faith backed out after her, careful not to get too close to Ziva or to put the gun down. The door shut firmly behind her.

Ziva lost no time in grabbing Gibbs’ Sigg from the floor by the window, but by the time she got to the door, the two women were already gone.

\---

When the taxi dropped them off at the new DC Slayer House, Faith winced as the car pulled away.

“What?” Willow demanded.

“I don’t think D waited for everybody to get here before she dragged whatever news Giles had out of him,” she said. “She’s wicked pissed.”


	16. Past Imperfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Willow couldn’t pick up Faith was reacting to until they stepped inside the house, but once they did, she could hear it loud and clear. It sounded like Dawn was in the middle of a meltdown reminiscent of her teenage years- not that it wasn’t understandable. Parental abandonment was a trigger for her, as was anything to do with her mother’s death. And like her sister, people hurting her family usually lit her fuse. It wouldn’t have taken much to set her off after the morning she’d had.

Faith dropped the suitcase in the front hall, and they walked into the spacious library area, which doubled as the living room for the personnel in residence. Dawn seemed to be focused on Giles. Willow wondered if something Giles had said had set Dawn off, or if she’d just snapped once they were safely inside the house. Xander had retreated to a couch out of the line of fire, probably after having seen an attempt to mediate go down in flames.

“Dawn, I understand your anger-“ Giles was saying, only to be cut off.

“No, Giles, I don’t think you do understand!” Dawn snapped. “This is not ok. In fact, this is beyond not ok. This is so far into ‘what the everloving fuck’ that I don’t even have words, and believe me, after Glory, it takes a hell of a lot to do that. And stop telling me to calm down, because I don’t think it’s humanly possible to be calm right now! I would know, because thanks to the Council, I have a whole lifetime of practice at being calm in circumstances no human being, let alone a scared kid, should ever be in!”

“That’s not fair, D,” Faith said quietly.

“No, it’s not, but it never has been, has it?” Dawn demanded. “It’s never been fair- to any of us. Buffy, you , me… we never had any choice. No one ever asked. They just dumped the weight of the world on us and stepped back to see if we’d manage to not get crushed. I mean, it’s right there in their job description, isn’t it- Watchers.”

Dawn spat the word like a curse.

“Dawn, Giles wasn’t-“ Willow began soothingly.

“I know. Giles wasn’t calling the shots in the Old Council,” Dawn interrupted. “And maybe in a little while I’ll be able to deal with him. But right now, I just can’t. Especially when he says ridiculous things like ‘calm down’. Right now, I look at him and I see something that’s awful close to a target, because that’s what I really want right now. A target. And don’t anyone even try to tell me rule twenty-two, because it doesn’t apply. Not to the Council. You sign on that dotted line and you’ve gone beyond human rules.”

“Dawn, this is not the way you want to do this,” came a new voice.

“Buffy!”

Her name was said in various tones of relief by the rest of the room, except for Dawn, who was too into her tirade to do more than shift her attention to the doorway as her sister stepped into the room.

“Guess I missed something,” Buffy said, walking into the room and dropping something that looked suspiciously like an old-school lunchbox onto the coffee table. “Because it sounded an awful lot like the baby sister I gave my life for is seriously talking about doing something that would put her on the wrong side of the good guys/bad guys line. I did not die for you so you could go vigilante and start killing people. Even Travers’ people. I know the mother that raised us would feel like a failure if she heard what I just did. And I’m pretty sure our mom- the one who seems to want us to see our dad in a non-handcuffs and jumpsuits wearing kind of way- wouldn’t be too happy either.”

Dawn flinched like she’d been slapped, but Buffy had gone straight for the jugular. She’d heard just enough to know there was nothing else that was sure to make Dawn stand down right now.

“I get it, Dawn,” she continued. “I really do. She was my mother, too. They took me away from her, they took every memory I had of her, and they didn’t care if she lived or died as long as they got what they wanted. Except someone seems to have thrown a spanner in the works, because they didn’t get their Potential, did they, Giles?”

“No,” Giles said, cautiously replacing the glasses he’d been fiercely cleaning. “They did not. As I was telling Dawn, while the Council did attempt to remove you from your parents, according to Council records, the extraction team failed- Kelly Gibbs was killed in the car crash along with her mother. And unlike NIS, the Council would have been able to verify your supposed death using magic- the spells that locate Potentials should have revealed your continued survival. They did not. Clearly there is something more to the story that we are still missing- some other party was involved.”

Buffy nodded. She’d already worked out that much. It seemed like whoever had given her to Joyce had been trying to protect her in their own twisted way. She didn’t know if they’d been unable to save her mom or they had been as cold as the Council. But they’d kept her safe from Travers until there was no more hiding what she was.

That was when it hit her- the woman who had inspired the name of the Council’s new public face.  
 _“We hid, too. We had to, until now. We’re the last surprise.”_ She’d said the Scythe was hidden. The Guardians were hidden- women who wanted to help her and protect her. But Buffy was suddenly certain the Guardian had known that Buffy had been hidden. Was there more the Guardian had meant to tell her before Caleb’s fatal interruption?

They _hid me from the Watchers_ , she thought. _I wasn’t the Council’s, I was theirs. Hidden until I was Called. Was I as surprising as they hoped?_

Buffy sighed. Now wasn’t the time, but at some point once they’d dealt with the current crisis, there needed to be a group session where everyone sat down and compared stories. She needed to know what had really happened. And so did her sister.

“Dawn, much as it sucks, you need to take some deep breaths. Because if anyone is going to pound on someone from the Old Council, I think I’m first in line. You can go second. Or maybe third, because I know our dad’s going to want in.,.”

Dawn’s lip jutted as rebelliously as if they were back in the living room on Revello Drive.

“What do you expect me to do?” she asked sullenly. “Sit around here under house arrest?”

“No,” Buffy said, shaking her head. “I don’t think you could even if you wanted to. You may not be a Slayer, but you’re enough like me that I wouldn’t ask you to sit still right now. You’re a Summers. Or a Gibbs, or whatever the hell we are, because to be honest, I don’t even know anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Xander spoke up, on firmer ground now that Dawn wasn’t ranting. “The name is just a label. Stick with Summers, go with Gibbs- hell, make up an entirely new name if it works better for you. Whatever you decide.”

Buffy paused for a second, considering.

“That’s true. The name doesn’t matter. What matters is that we know we’re sisters.”

Dawn’s scowl changed to a smirk.

“Yeah, we even have the DNA tests to prove it now. Well, NCIS does, anyway.”

“Exactly,” Buffy grinned. “We’re a package deal. So don’t you go off the deep end on me. I need you, and I need you thinking clearly, because I want you backing me up. I’ve gotten too used to you being my ace in the hole to go without you now.”

Dawn took a deep breath, willing herself calmer. Buffy hadn’t said there wouldn’t be justice. She’d just said now was not the time. And Dawn knew her sister had to be just as furious as she was at whoever had murdered their mother- maybe more, what with the missing memories and all. _Real_ memories.

Tampering with everyone’s memory was a large part of what was setting her off. Dawn knew what it felt like to find out all your memories were fake. She had known that Buffy’s memories of them growing up together were fake, too. But to find out that even the memories underneath those fake, monk-created memories weren’t real… She wanted to tear whoever had done this to her sister limb from limb and beat them with those limbs.

She was also furious because whoever had done this had also done it to Joyce. Joyce’s memories had all been fake. She might not be their real mother, but she had raised them and loved them like her own. Dawn understood intellectually that her biological mother had been dead since before she was created, but Joyce still felt like her mother. And in Dawn’s book, what had been done to her was unforgivable. Whoever had given Buffy to Joyce had known they were dumping a Potential on her, and they hadn’t warned her- one more person who hadn’t been given a choice, and one who had gotten nothing but danger and heartbreak out of it.

_Was Mom supposed to have a nice, normal life? Was she supposed to have kids of her own? Does she have a family out there someplace still wondering what happened to her, too?_

But Buffy was right- she needed to calm down. Dawn took a deep breath, and then another. She’d heard the mini Slayers being stepped through this many times. Breathe in, breathe out. Find your calm. Put the anger someplace and lock it up tight until you need it- until you can use it.

“Ok,” Dawn said, in a quieter, if not completely calm voice. “What’s the plan?”

Buffy exhaled in relief, then frowned.

“We have to hit Quantico tonight. Giving this group breathing space is not something we can do. Even if they didn’t realize your connection to the Council, they must know there’s a major investigation that could come down on them at any time. I don’t know what their plans were, but I think it’s safe to assume it’s not anything we want them putting into action. So Faith, Willow, and I track them down and clean out their nest tonight. Giles will be our on-site Watcher. We should probably see if Riley’s team are willing to play backup, because these guys absolutely cannot get loose- I do not want to be dealing with an undead army headed by vamps trained in strategy and combat tactics.”

“We might already be facing that,” Faith pointed out.

Dawn shook her head.

“They’re still in the recruiting phase,” she said decisively. “If they already had an army, they would be doing more than skulking around a Marine base. And they may have been indiscriminate in their feeding, but they were being choosy about siring. They were only taking the biggest and the best. Whatever they’re planning, they’re not ready to make their move yet. Maybe they’ll rush it if they feel pressured, but I don’t think they’re going to panic because of Navy cops. If they find out the senior Slayers are in town, though…”

“That still leaves the question of where they came from in the first place,” Xander observed. “Are we sure no one’s started up an Initiative 2.0? I mean, I trust Riley’s crew, but that doesn’t mean some other idiot general hasn’t gotten bright ideas. There’s enough money being thrown around in the defense budget not to mention all the off the books stuff that there could easily be another Maggie Walsh out there with steady funding.”

“Doesn’t matter, yo,” Faith put in. “I’m not disagreeing that it’s important to run it down, but we have to deal with what’s on the ground here and now first. Get through this and then worry about the how and the where from.”

“Either way, we should head to Pentagon to coordinate with Riley,” Dawn said. “I’m guessing he’s going to need to clear the way for us in Quantico so we don’t end up with a butt-ton of MPs swarming around underfoot. You don’t want civilians in the mix.”

Xander laughed.

“Dawnmeister, you better be careful now you’re stationed in DC. Those Marine MPs you’re talking about would strongly object to being called ‘civilians’.”

Dawn rolled her eyes.

“For our purposes, they are. Does the Corps cover vampires in Basic? Do they know what to do with a stake? Do they teach the decapitation rule? No? Civilians!”

“Just don’t tell them that,” Xander said, resigned to the inevitable. He had a feeling that at some point in a month or two, Riley or Graham would be calling him to have this talk with Dawn again.

“Anyway,” Dawn said, “I take it I get to be the voice of mission control again?”

Buffy shook her head.

“No, Xander’s on that tonight. Between his soldier memories and what he’s picked up since, I feel like he’ll have an edge when it comes to thinking like these guys and anticipating. I’ve got something else in mind for you. It’s really important, and it’s something I’m pretty sure only you can do. Faith and I will go meet up with Riley and see if his crew wants in on tonight’s fun and games. While we do, Giles, I think you should put in an official appearance at NCIS. I already talked to the President and asked him to give whatever orders need to come from him, so they’ll also get hit with their own chain of command.”

Xander snickered, and the girls rolled their eyes, all aware which quote was dancing in his head.

“Make it clear they need to cease their investigation like yesterday,” Buffy continued, not giving Xander the chance to say it out loud. “Hopefully that will reinforce what’s already coming down from the White House. Dawn’s right, I so do not need to be tripping over civilians tonight.”

Dawn stuck her tongue out at Xander.

“See? Buffy says it too. But Buffy, you can’t send Giles by himself,” Dawn pointed out. “You know how we always thought your tendency to hit things was a Slayer trait? I think you actually get it from dear old dad. If Giles walks in there on his own, he is totally getting punched.”

“Huh?” Buffy replied, confused. “Why would there be punching at NCIS? I get that they’ve probably told Dad by now, but-”

Faith cracked up.

“You missed a detail when you went on your side trip, B,” she said. “Turns out your father is an NCIS agent. We saw him at the hotel when we picked up little D’s stuff.”

The look on Buffy’s face was priceless.

“My dad turned into a _cop_?” she asked, sounding utterly and completely appalled.

Even Dawn laughed at the horror in her tone.

“Yeah, Buffy, he’s a Navy cop,” she told her sister. “So you’re going to have to work through that dislike of law enforcement.”

“It’s not just me,” Buffy protested.

“Don’t look at me, I’m already working on my issues,” Faith said, holding up her hands.

“By hitting people,” Willow said tartly.

“You hit our dad?” Dawn spluttered.

“No!” Faith replied indignantly. “Ok, maybe I was going to, but Willow got him with the mojo first. You’re right, he does share facial expressions with big sis.”

“Distraction’s not working, Faith,” Dawn informed her, crossing her arms and glaring at both of them.

“There was no hitting! Red, help me out here!”

“If we could return to the subject at hand,” Giles said, trying to get the younger people in the room to focus.

“I’ll go with the G-Man,” Xander volunteered. “Not that I’m sure that will keep Papa Bear from taking a swing, but I’ll do my best.”

“Me too,” Willow put in. “I’d like to see Buffy’s dad when he’s awake.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow at Faith, who gave her a ‘what did you want us to do?’ shrug.

“Oh, yeah, might also want to return this while you’re there,” Faith said, pulling out the gun she’d confiscated earlier. “I did tell say we’d return it next time we saw her.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose.

“Why do you have a gun?” she asked.

“Took it off your dad’s backup before she ran afoul of rule 37,” Faith smirked. “By the way, you’ll love this- Ziva David works with your father.”

Both Summers sisters looked intrigued at that.

“If he hasn’t killed her, maybe that means Eli’s the odd one out,” Dawn said thoughtfully. “I wonder if she knows what really happened to Ari.”

“Perhaps Dawn should come along,” Giles suggested. “She could meet your father and speak with Miss David.”

Dawn was suddenly all wide-eyed panic, but Buffy looked thoughtful.

“If she thinks she can handle it, that might actually work,” she mused, eying her sister challengingly. “It ties in nicely with what I had in mind for you before I knew our father was one of the Navy cops, and it’s probably a lot more important since he is…”

\---

Gibbs protested all the way to his house that he was fine. He didn’t need to go home, he needed to get back to the bullpen and hear what McGee and DiNozzo had found out.

Unfortunately, Ziva had obstinately shrugged off all orders to take him anywhere else. When he’d woken up on the hotel room floor, she’d glared at him and asked furiously what he had been thinking, walking in without waiting for backup.

He’d felt guilty when he’d seen what was behind the anger in her eyes- fear. Whatever had happened when he was out had shaken the former Mossad agent. She’d lost her brother. She was barely on speaking terms with her father because of the choices he’d made. And she’d walked in to find him down.

_You are the closest thing I have to a father…_

Never say you’re sorry was a rule, but he had said he shouldn’t have done it. It had been foolish. If they’d wanted to, they could have killed him. And as Ducky had rather acidly pointed out when Ziva had marched Gibbs down to his domain for a medical check, he had been warned about the Council. He was bloody lucky to still be walking and talking.

Despite not being able to find anything actually wrong with him, Ducky had added the force of medical opinion to back up Ziva’s opinion that he should call it a day. Ducky had also had some choice words for him about trying to force a confrontation with Dawn when she clearly was not ready.

“I would get plenty of rest sitting at my desk,” Gibbs growled for the fifth time since being herded into the car.

“Ducky said to take you home,” she shot back, hands locked on the steering wheel.

After a pause, she added, “He was not the only one who said to take you home. It would probably be best if you changed in any case- you look like you have been through all the whores.”

 _She does it on purpose_ , Gibbs thought. _I swear she does it on purpose._ Usually it was amusing, but at the moment, it was maddening.

“And as I said,” Ziva continued, “Faith Lehane said specifically to take you home.”

“It’s an expression, Ziver,” Gibbs growled irritably.

“How do you know she was not speaking literally?” Ziva demanded. “It could easily be a message. It is not as if she could say clearly that there are things your daughters cannot possibly discuss with you at NCIS.”

He didn’t have any good comeback to that, because he knew there were definitely things his daughters couldn’t discuss with him at NCIS if they were inclined to discuss them with him at all, so he seethed in silence the rest of the way to his house. As he walked up his front steps, his objections abruptly vanished. Ziva hissed in frustration as she reached for a weapon that wasn’t in its holster, but Gibbs waved it off. This wasn’t a threat.

Hanging on the doorknob was a yellow ribbon he recognized all too well. When he grabbed it, something else clattered onto the floorboards of the porch. He picked it up.

A single dogtag. He knew it, because he’d had it made at the base exchange on his way home from Just Cause. It had one name on it- Kelly.

The only way it could have gotten on his doorknob was if someone had dug up Kelly’s time capsule. There were only three people in the world who knew about that- him, Maddie Tyler, and Kelly herself.

Maddie was back in California, happily working at a vet clinic and specializing in horses, just like she’d planned. They kept in touch ever since that incident with the logistics clerk and the stolen cash. She’d written him just a few weeks back to let him know she was engaged. It was a fairly safe bet that she hadn’t been seized by a sudden desire to go dig Kelly’s lunchbox up.

He strode around to the backyard, a confused Ziva trailing in his wake. It didn’t look like anyone had been digging, but when he brushed the mulch aside, he could see where the soil underneath had been disturbed.

“Kelly was here,” he told Ziva.

“How do you know?” she asked, surprised. “Do you think she is still here?”

He shook his head. He couldn’t say how he was sure, but his gut said if she’d wanted to talk to him right now, he’d have found her on the porch, not her dog tag. The only question was what she meant by it. Was it supposed to be a sign of life, or a message that his little girl was gone for good?


	17. The Girls Not In The Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Willow caught Xander’s eye in concern. Buffy and Faith were on their way to the Pentagon to set everything up with Riley. Willow, Xander, and Giles would join them after their trip to NCIS headquarters. Dawn was a maybe- if she went, it would be mostly to tell Graham to make sure he brought himself home in one piece.

After Buffy had a long, quiet talk with Dawn, everyone had thought Dawn was ok to come to the meeting- including Dawn herself. Not only would it convince the NCIS leadership that she was not under any sort of duress from the Council, it would give her a perfect lead-in to her assignment from Buffy.

Unfortunately, whatever hold on calm she’d had when they left the house was fast evaporating as the car got closer to NCIS.

Xander tried not to sigh out loud. With Giles driving, that left him or Willow to talk Dawn out of whatever was bothering her now. And Willow clearly thought it was his turn.

“Dawnster?” Xander asked. “Something bothering you?”

“I don’t think I can do this,” Dawn announced. “Giles? Stop the car.”

“Is everything all right, Dawn?” Giles asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror in concern. He did slow and pull over at the first opportunity he could find.

“I… they… no.”

Dawn stopped, then tried again.

“I’m not ready for this. And maybe our father’s not ready for this either. I mean, if he wanted to talk to me, wouldn’t he have been the one in the room with me this morning instead of Agent McGee?”

Xander could only shrug helplessly. Half the reason he was coming along was to get a chance to assess this Agent Gibbs for himself. As long as he’d known and been close to the Summers girls, he felt like a brother, ready to run off anyone who wasn’t good enough for his girls. And if the man was good enough… well, someone had to warn him what he was getting into.

“Maybe he wanted to be but he wasn’t allowed to? We don’t know much about how NCIS operates. There might be rules. NCIS rules.”

Willow glared at him. Despite the ever growing list of Official Scooby Rules, neither Buffy nor Dawn had ever caviled at bending stupid rules- and anything that barred them from seeing family would fall into the ‘stupid rules’ category, to be bent if not outright broken. Given that she’d witnessed Agent Gibbs already breaking rules trying to get to his daughter, ‘rules’ was about the least convincing explanation Xander could have come up with.

“He definitely wanted to see you, Dawn,” Willow reassured her. “The agent with him at your hotel room was pretty clear about that.”

“Why would he, though?” Dawn demanded. “I’m not Buffy.”

“She asked about you specifically, not to mention first, and said your father needed to know that you were ok,” Willow replied. “It sounded like he’s worried about both of you.”

“Yeah, but how does this even make sense to him? We can’t just outright tell him I’m made from Buffy! I don’t think the monks gave him memories of me, and he’s an investigator with the logic and the science- his world doesn’t include magic! So as far as he’s concerned I’m some mystery girl with no explanation that is only connected to him because a DNA test says so! He could well be telling himself the DNA test must be wrong. You can dope a DNA test, you know. It’s not impossible.”

“Once you’re away from the NCIS building and it’s just family, you can talk it over with him if you want to, Dawnie,” Xander suggested.

“If he wanted to talk to me, then why didn’t he talk to me when I was at NCIS?” Dawn repeated, this time sounding more hurt than angry.

She opened the car door and hopped out, looking pensively toward the river.

“Where are you going?” Giles asked, worried.

“For a walk. I need to clear my head, Giles. I’m not ok to go back to NCIS right now.”

“What do we tell your dad? He’s going to ask,” Xander pointed out.

Dawn shrugged.

“Tell him whatever you think he needs to hear,” she replied. “I trust your judgment.”

Willow gave her a stern look.

“Let us know where you are, or I’ll use the Force.”

Worryingly, Dawn didn’t even manage a smile at that. Normally, it would have gotten a giggle.

“I’ll let you know,” she said morosely. “I’m not backing out. I just don’t know if I want to talk to him yet. If I don’t see you before kickoff, good luck and be careful.”

“Right back atcha,” Xander replied, closing the door. He watched her walk toward the bridge. “We gave her too much time to worry, didn’t we?”

“Unless you wanted to travel by magical means, faster wasn’t an option,” Giles pointed out rather testily from the driver’s seat. “Traffic in this blasted city and ‘fast’ are mutually exclusive.”

“Says the man who thinks traffic in London is completely reasonable even though the average vehicle speed hasn’t improved since the days of horse and carriages,” Xander muttered.

Willow sighed as Giles pulled back into traffic to resume the journey to the Navy Yard.

“I think this visit just got a lot more complicated.”

\---

Once he’d proven to Ziva there was no one at the house, she’d grudgingly agreed that going back to the office might be a good idea. Gibbs stomped out of the elevator, heading to his desk, ready to rip McGee and DiNozzo a new one if they didn’t have something for him. He was not in a mood to accept any more obstacles.  
He was intercepted by Director Vance as he turned the corner.

“Gibbs. Anything I should know?”

Gibbs paused. He probably should have given Leon a heads-up about Kelly before now. He didn’t bother to wonder how the director had found out. Sooner or later, Leon heard about everything going on in his agency. And when it was as strange as this case, it was usually sooner rather than later.

“I was coming to you next, director,” he said neutrally, grabbing the folder he needed from his desk.

“Oh, good, I can’t wait to hear why I just had the President call me directly.”

“The President?” Ziva asked from behind them, eyebrow raised. She could see Tim and Tony also tune into the conversation.

“Yes, the President,” Vance replied. “And I’m going to say this once, so David, you, DiNozzo, and McGee better pay attention: we have been ordered to drop the investigation into the incident at Quantico Tuesday evening. As far as this agency is concerned, the matter has been handled. Case closed. Furthermore, you are to cease any and all investigation into Guardian International and an organization called the IWC. You are also to cease investigation of anyone connected to those organizations, specifically including but not limited to Buffy Summers, Dawn Summers, and any of their associates. Do not initiate any further contact.”

Ziva felt a strong urge to step back. She was sure there was some sort of explosion imminent. There was no way Gibbs could possibly accept this.

“Have I made myself clear?” Vance asked, his tone making it obvious that there was only one acceptable answer.

“Yes, director,” came the reply, though McGee was looking from Gibbs to the director as though he thought he was missing something, and DiNozzo looked skeptical.

“Gibbs, my office. You can catch me up on what it was you were just about to tell me.”

As Gibbs followed the director, Ziva walked over to McGee’s desk, where DiNozzo joined them.

“Oh, and McGee?” Vance called from the stairs. “I was also specifically warned about trying to hack these people. I don’t know who does their information security, and I’m told I don’t need to know. But whoever they are, they’re touchy about intrusions. I don’t feel like explaining to the accountants why they have to find money in the budget to replace all of NCIS’s servers. Don’t.”

McGee looked at Ziva.

“What just happened?” he asked.

\---

As soon as the door closed behind him, Gibbs tossed the folder onto the director’s desk.

Vance opened it as he seated himself.

“These are from the investigation into the crash that killed your wife and daughter.”

“Keep reading, Leon,” Gibbs said.

Vance flipped to the next page, the one with the DNA results. He swore the instant he realized what he was seeing.

“Just what the hell have you gotten yourself into, Gibbs?”

“That’s a good question, Leon. I don’t know.”

Gibbs gave Vance a brief rundown of what had happened the day before, and that morning. He hesitated, but did include going home to find Kelly’s dogtag. He couldn’t quite bring himself to hand it over.

Vance’s expression was thunderous.

“I don’t know much about the IWC, I’ve only heard bits and pieces here and there. Occasionally other agency directors will mention them-FBI in particular seems to have a positive opinion of them- but no one ever volunteers specifics. Eli’s got a healthy respect for them. I’ll be honest, that worries me.”

“Eli David has ‘respect’ for them?” Gibbs snorted. The only way Eli David respected anyone was if they’d proved to him they could be as big a bastard as he could. “Yeah, that worries me, too. Ziva talked to him last night. Unofficial.”

Vance waited.

“According to her, he predicted this would happen. Once Buffy Summers hit town, we’d get orders to back off that we can’t ignore. My only question is whether this Guardian or IWC or whoever the hell they are has enough pull to get the President to cut orders like that, or whether Eli David is involved somehow.”

Vance shook his head.

“Eli wouldn’t get us removed from the case even if he could. Not his style. He’d be more likely to call me up fishing for more intel on them- he may know more than I do, but I get the distinct impression he doesn’t know as much about them as he’d like.”

“Director Vance?”

The interruption came from the intercom. Vance’s assistant sounded apologetic.

“There’s a Sir Rupert Giles from the IWC requesting to meet with you.”

Vance raised an eyebrow.

“So much for no contact,” he observed.

“Orders were _we_ aren’t to initiate contact,” Gibbs pointed out. “Didn’t say anything about them.”

Vance grimaced.

“Either you really stepped on someone’s toes, or we have something they want.”

He pressed the button on the intercom.

“When did Sir Rupert want to meet?” Vance asked the assistant.

“Now, director, if it’s convenient. He and two associates are waiting at the front desk.”

Vance fought the urge to growl. ‘If it’s convenient’ rubbed him the wrong way. IWC knew damn well it had to be convenient- they knew more about the situation than he did, and from where he sat, they were holding all the cards. And they knew that, too.

“Send them in,” Vance said. “Actually- have Agent David show them up.”

Cutting off the intercom, he looked at Gibbs.

“Any idea what they’re here for?” he asked.

“Maybe they just wanted to make sure we got the message,” Gibbs muttered, heading for the door.

“Gibbs, stay,” Vance ordered. “Either way, we’re going to find out.”

Gibbs smirked. Vance meant more than just finding out what these people wanted.

\---

“Wow, it’s really… orange in here,” Willow said, following the agent who had been sent to escort them to the NCIS director’s office.

Xander snickered.

“Just what I was thinking, Will,” he said. “Any sign of-“

He broke off. Ziva David had planted herself squarely in front of them.

“I will take it from here,” she told the other NCIS agent, who nodded and headed back to the elevator.

“Agent David,” Willow said. “They have your gun down at security. They said I wasn’t allowed to carry it up here to you.”

Ziva raised an eyebrow. She had not expected them to be so literal about returning her weapon.

“Thank you, Miss Rosenberg,” she said, defrosting slightly. “Though I believe it was Miss Lehane who said she would return it the next time she saw me.”

“Faith’s busy, so she couldn’t come. And no one liked the idea of leaving it sitting around unattended. This is Xander Harris,” Willow said, gesturing at him. She saw Ziva’s flicker of surprise as she took in the eye patch. “And Sir Rupert Giles, head of the IWC.”

Giles harrumphed. Not only were the children taking far too much delight in using the ‘Sir’, he preferred not to be called the head of the organization, given that the reconstituted Council pointedly did not have one person in charge- it had two.

“Agent David,” he said, extending a hand to shake.

Ziva gripped it harder than was necessary, putting some of the anger the entire team was feeling on Gibbs’ behalf into the shake. To her disappointment, Giles neither flinched nor grimaced.

“This way,” she told them brusquely.

They hadn’t quite made it to the stairs when another person stood himself firmly in their path. Unlike Ziva, he was older, and didn’t look like an agent. Willow eyed him curiously. She couldn’t think what he was doing here.

“Dr. Donald Mallard,” he introduced himself curtly. “Medical examiner.”

“Hello, doctor,” Willow said, smiling and offering her hand.

He seemed slightly discombobulated by the warm response.

“I understand you are from the Council.”

Willow glanced at Giles, who looked to be fighting an urge to clean his glasses. She kept her smile on her face as she replied.

“We are,” she said. “Have you worked with us before?”

Dealing with people who had known the previous incarnation of the Council was always fraught. In general it went one of two ways- they had either been burned by the old Council and were furious with them, or they had been allies who were suspicious of the new blood.

“Absolutely not,” Dr. Mallard snapped, glaring at Giles.

Hm. So, burned by the old Council, then, Willow thought.

“Dr. Mallard, the Council underwent a severe reorganization about ten years ago,” she told him. “If you haven’t dealt with us in some time, you might be pleasantly surprised.”

Dr. Mallard stepped back to peer at her suspiciously. Willow wondered just what the Council had done to NCIS’s medical examiner- and how it was that no one had noticed that the Council had crossed paths with more than one person at NCIS headquarters. That fell under rule 27- things we do not believe in: coincidences, leprechauns.

“We have a meeting with Director Vance right now,” Willow continued, “but I would love to speak with you another time.”

Ziva looked from the medical examiner to their ‘guests’ and decided the most sensible thing to do was to hurry them upstairs.

As they followed, Willow noticed two men in the middle of the room watching them up the stairs. She was guessing they would be Agents DiNozzo and McGee. They were accompanied by a tall Goth in a lab coat who was openly glaring at Giles. Willow was a little surprised they hadn’t joined the group heading for the director’s office, but then again, NCIS was probably a little more formal about meetings than the Council.

When they reached the director’s office, Ziva pointed them toward the door.

“The director is waiting for you,” she said. “I will remain here to escort you out when your meeting has finished.”

“Thanks,” Willow chirped, purposely being more cheerful than she felt. It seemed to irritate Ziva.

Inside the office, she found the director of NCIS was younger than she’d expected. Crankier, too, but Agent Gibbs standing next to him might well explain that. She let Giles take the lead.

“Director Vance,” Giles said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, though obviously we wish the meeting were under better circumstances. These are my associates, Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris.”

Vance uncrossed his arms, but didn’t bother with any patently false pleasantries. Gibbs had given Giles and Xander evaluating glances, but his eyes stayed on Willow the longest. She could practically feel him trying to figure her out.

“Director Giles. Have a seat.”

Giles sat. Xander wandered off to one side, taking in the way Vance had chosen to decorate his office. Willow sighed inwardly and took the seat next to Giles.

“First, I would like to thank you for seeing us so promptly, despite our lack of advance notice.”

“Cut to the chase,” Vance said. “Why are you here?”

“We wished to make it clear that Agent Gibbs and his team need to cease their investigation into the situation in Quantico at once. Further involvement on their part would be… dangerous.”

“For who?” Vance demanded.

“For them,” Giles replied simply. “I assure you this has nothing to do with turf, Director. I’ve noticed American agencies tend to be quite preoccupied with such things.”

“And you’re not,” Vance said, in that way he had of making a statement that invited the other party to say more.

“No. We tend to focus on results. But part of our mission involves ensuring the safety of others, and that includes your agents. Given the situation, I’m sure the temptation to ignore the orders I understand you have been given is great. I must implore you not to do so.”

“The situation?” Gibbs asked, his voice soft and dangerous.

Vance cut him off with a gesture.

“Perhaps you should elaborate on that, Director Giles,” Vance suggested. “I’d like to be clear what exactly the situation is.”

“We have just become aware that Agent Gibbs has family ties to people in our organization,” Giles said. He’d been hoping Gibbs would take the opening, but Vance had shut him down.

“The women you call Buffy and Dawn Summers,” Vance said. “I’m curious, Director Giles- given that Kelly Gibbs appears to have been abducted in a carefully orchestrated operation, how exactly is it that you only just became aware?”

Vance's tone was one of a practiced politician, but the look on Gibbs’ face practically dared Giles to try feeding him some bullshit story.

“I’m sure you understand, Director,” Giles said softly, “that we sometimes find ourselves in the position of cleaning up our predecessors’ messes- particularly those messes that were kept so quiet that no one was aware of them until they blew up in our faces.”

Vance froze. Giles’ words implied he was aware of some of NCIS’s dirty laundry- and given all the headaches he’d inherited from Shepard, he couldn’t be sure that Shepard’s own messy end was all the man meant. No wonder Eli had such respect for these bastards.

“Where are they?” Gibbs demanded suddenly.

Willow jumped in before Giles could reply.

“Buffy and Dawn aren’t ready to see you yet, Agent Gibbs,” she said. Her tone radiated quiet understanding. “Believe me, there would be no stopping them if they wanted to be here. But they’re very concerned that you don’t get caught in the mess in Quantico.”

“What sort of assurance can you give us,” Vance jumped in before Gibbs could respond, “that you don’t intend to ship these girls back out of the country without them having any contact with their father? I should point out that the investigation into Kelly Gibbs’ abduction is still open.”

A snort that just might have been covering a laugh came from Xander’s direction, earning him a glare from Gibbs and a sideways glance from Vance.

Willow tried not to giggle. She could tell it was driving both men on the other side of the desk crazy that they could only refer to Kelly- Dawn didn’t fit into the picture at all, but they both seemed to want her to. Vance might only want to be able to work her in as added leverage, but she could see Agent Gibbs visibly steaming. It was probably lucky for Giles there was both a desk and his director between him and Gibbs.

“I cannot offer any sort of blanket assurance, Director,” Giles said apologetically. “Buffy Summers is one of our top field agents. If a situation arises that requires her presence, I cannot stop her from leaving the country.”

“Dawn is being posted to DC, though,” Willow added, feeling like they had somehow settled into a good cop, bad cop routine and wondering if this had been Giles’ plan. “It’s unlikely she’ll be traveling anytime soon. At least, not out of the country. I think she was planning to visit friends in California once she settled in.”

“Why can’t I see her?” Gibbs demanded. He spoke straight to Willow, apparently having decided that he wouldn’t get a straight answer from Giles.

“When you see Dawn is up to her,” Willow said simply. “I’m sure you’re worried we’re controlling them somehow, but your daughters make their own decisions. It was Dawn’s decision not to be here right now. She’s pretty upset- family is important to her, and this has brought up a lot of issues.”

Gibbs glared at her, but Willow had seen worse from far more dangerous opponents. The way Buffy talked about her dad, she was sure he wouldn’t do more than growl at her.

Giles cleared his throat, drawing attention back to himself.

“Difficult as this may be for you to believe, gentlemen, we are acting in accordance with Buffy and Dawn’s wishes. The sole purpose in this meeting was to relieve their concerns about their father’s safely.”

“You’re trying to tell us you’re acting in the girls’ interests,” Vance said skeptically. He was startled to see Director Giles bristle.

“Director, let me be clear. I have been acting in the girls’ best interests, whether they understood it at the time or not, for many years now. You are clearly skeptical about us, but consider my perspective- you’re all but demanding the girls be put in a position that they find uncomfortable and judge to be dangerous. What would you do?”

Gibbs ignored the interchange between Giles and Vance, still focused on Rosenberg.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Willow shrugged.

“Dawn? I honestly don’t know. She said she needed some time to clear her head.”

“And you just let her go?” Gibbs exploded. “According to Colonel Finn, she’s been abducted multiple times in the past. She’s considered to be sufficiently at risk that she checks in with someone at least once an hour, and you’re telling me you don’t know where she is? You just left her wandering around alone and upset?”

“Enough!” Vance cut in.

He eyed Gibbs in concern. If this meeting went on much longer, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to restrain him from attacking Director Giles and possibly Harris. Rosenberg was probably the only one who would walk away unscathed. Hell, if this meeting went on much longer, he wasn’t too sure he’d be able to restrain himself.

“Gentlemen, this isn’t productive. Director Giles, you’ve delivered your message. My agents will not be continuing their investigation in Quantico. The President’s orders were very clear. Unless you have anything more to add, like when we can expect Kelly and Dawn to be made available to help us in our investigation into Kelly’s abduction-“

“You mean Buffy,” a new voice cut in, sounding slightly irritated.

“Excuse me?” Vance demanded, rounding on Harris, who they found standing near the couch, where he’d been checking out the boxing photos.

“Her name. It’s Buffy. Unless she tells us otherwise.”

“Yes, thank you, Xander,” Giles cut in, standing up. “I think we should be leaving. We’ve taken up enough of the NCIS director’s valuable time, and we have a schedule to keep. Director Vance, Buffy Summers is well aware of how to contact her father should she wish to do so. I have no doubt she has shared that information with Dawn. I cannot and will not order either of the girls to have contact with their father or with this agency against their will. Good day.”


	18. Hey Little Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Gibbs glared at Giles’ and Rosenberg’s backs as they exited Vance’s office.

As the IWC people filed out, Harris lagged behind, letting Vance and Gibbs catch up to him while the rest of his group walked down the stairs. Other than his outburst about Kelly’s name, Harris had kept quiet for most of the encounter. Gibbs could have sworn that at one point the younger man had been checking something on his phone rather than paying attention to the conversation.

“You have something to add, Mr. Harris?” Vance asked sharply.

He was in a foul mood. The IWC group had stonewalled them, and he knew he had nothing to threaten them with. What was worse, they knew it. As far as they were concerned, NCIS had just been checkmated. Gibbs would be violating an order directly from the President if he pursued anyone connected with IWC, Guardian, or continued his Quantico investigation or went near the Summers girls.

This meeting felt like rubbing their noses in it- he could see Gibbs was seething, and he was right there with him. If representatives of an organization that had abducted his children and done god knows what to them waltzed in and proceeded to explain that they had the kids’ best interests at heart, he’d want to kill someone, too.

And, of course, he knew damn well that Presidential order or not, there was no way Gibbs was going to leave this alone.

“Actually, I had something I wanted to tell Agent Gibbs,” the man with the eye patch replied evenly.

Gibbs gave him a glare that would have made McGee pee his pants. Kelly wasn’t willing to see him. They said ‘yet’, but ‘yet’ could cover a long time- maybe the rest of his life. Worse, Dawn was MIA and from the sounds of it not thinking clearly, and no one in the group seemed to feel any sense of urgency about it, even with her history.

“Speak,” he ordered, doing his best to keep his temper under control.

Harris looked to be suppressing a laugh. Vance laid a restraining hand on Gibbs’ arm, worried about his reaction.

“In my experience, Agent Gibbs,” Harris said, “when people are upset, they tend to seek out the familiar.”

“Dawn’s never been to DC before,” Gibbs said, puzzled.

He suspected that the younger man was trying to give him some sort of hint- it was almost like he knew perfectly well that Gibbs had no intention of following orders, not when it came to his girls- but damned if he could see where he was meant to go with it.

“That’s true, she hasn’t. But there’s at least one place around here that would remind her of home. I don’t know how far it is from NCIS, but I’m sure she could walk there from where we left her. Think on it. Just don’t take too long- it’ll be dark soon.”

“Agent Gibbs has been ordered by the President not to initiate contact with Miss Summers,” Vance pointed out, eyebrow raised.

Harris shrugged.

“Well, if he ever asks- and he only would if you really screw things up- tell him I initiated the contact. No matter what you think about us, we don’t actually want Dawn on her own tonight.”

With that cryptic sendoff, Harris hurried to catch up with the rest of his group.

Gibbs watched him into the elevator before he shrugged off Vance’s look of concern and strode into the bullpen. Where would Dawn call home? Someplace in England? No, that wasn’t right. Home was where you grew up, for better or worse. Dawn Summers had been most of the way through high school before the Summers girls and their friends left California.

“McGee! Ziva! DiNozzo! What in the DC area would be familiar to a girl from Sunnydale?”

He was met with two blank looks and the sound of fingers flying over a keyboard.

“Sunnydale, California,” McGee read. “Population prior to the disaster 32,887. Three high schools, two public, one private, a little over a dozen elementary schools, a zoo, a museum, one of the smaller UC campuses...forty-three churches and twelve cemeteries. Wait, that can’t be right.”

“Twelve cemeteries…” Gibbs repeated quietly, glancing out the window at the vivid sunset.

Like many American cities, Washington didn’t have one single prominent church, since which one you considered important tended to depend on the denomination you belonged to. But it did have a famous cemetery. Glancing outside, he saw that the sun was sinking fast.

“Ziva, you’re with me. DiNozzo, McGee, keep digging. I want to know everything there is to know about Guardian International.”

“But Boss, I thought-“ McGee dropped whatever he’d been about to say in view of Gibb’s expression and DiNozzo’s fierce ‘not now, probie!’ look. He meekly started keying in commands.

“Where are you going, boss?” DiNozzo asked, but his only reply was the sound of the elevator doors closing behind Ziva and Gibbs.

\---

By the time they got there, Arlington was closing for the night, but Gibbs flashed his badge at the guard on duty and told him they needed to check something on the grounds. The guard waved them in without further question.

“Where do you think she would be?” Ziva asked quietly. Now that they were in, there was still a lot of ground to cover. She hadn’t doubted his assumption that Dawn would not have been bothered by a silly thing like opening hours. After all, it would not stop her if she wanted to be there.

Gibbs frowned as he considered her question. He really didn’t know this new daughter of his at all. Even assuming he hadn’t misinterpreted Harris’ hint and they weren’t on a wild goose chase, Dawn could be anywhere in the 200 acre cemetery. Where would she be?

Think on it, Harris had said. He’d thought on it, and realized that this was familiar to her. Another thing that had to be familiar to her was being on her guard. He knew about that. So where would he be, if he came here to think?

“Up there someplace,” he finally said, pointing up at Arlington House. “Good view, and not an easy place for anyone to sneak up on her. We’ll have to move quietly- she can still hear us even if she doesn’t see us.”

Ziva nodded, and they began the trudge up the hill. Gibbs halfway wished they’d asked the guard to get them a vehicle, but told himself that foot was probably better. The noise of a vehicle might spook Dawn into moving and his gut said that if they provoked her into playing hide and seek in the dark, she’d win. A girl who fought vampires would be used to moving around at night.

He and Ziva kept silent all the way up the hill. When they reached the top, they moved cautiously.

For a moment, Gibbs thought there was no one there. Then he spotted her, sitting at the base of the flagpole, outside the cones of space lit up by the floodlights, knees drawn up to her chest. He signaled Ziva to hold position, and approached carefully. Even moving quietly, Dawn heard him before he got within several body lengths.

She looked up, surprised to be disturbed, and still more surprised when she registered the disturber, though she wiped the expression off of her face quickly.

“Cemetery’s closed, you know,” Gibbs told her.

“That’s why I stuck around,” Dawn replied. “The place should have been empty. I needed some time to myself.”

She frowned.

“How did you know where to find me? You didn’t put some kind of tracker on me, did you?”

Gibbs shook his head.

“Man with an eye patch reminded me that when people are upset, they tend to gravitate to the familiar. Figured nothing around here would be more familiar to someone from Sunnydale. Mind if I sit down?”

Dawn hesitated for a moment, then shrugged.

“They tell me it’s a free country.”

Gibbs sat down next to her, and followed her gaze out across the silent cemetery and across the river to the illuminated memorials. Lincoln. Washington. Sandwiched in between, and barely visible, the World War II memorial.

Dawn didn’t say anything, so he knew he’d have to start the conversation.

“Want to talk about it?”

She didn’t move, and let the silence draw out to the point that he wondered if she was going to reply at all.

“About what?”

“Whatever’s bothering you enough that you’re sitting in a cemetery after dark in the cold by yourself. Figure it must be something pretty serious. Just go easy on me, ok? I’m a little out of practice at the dad thing.”

Dawn made a noise that couldn’t quite decide whether it was sigh, snort, laugh, or cry.

“At least you were a dad,” she muttered.

“Still am, or so the DNA results say,” Gibbs said evenly. “Pretty sure your sister thinks so, too. She stopped by the house earlier.”

“Yeah, but you’re Buffy’s dad,” Dawn said sadly. “Or Kelly, or whatever her name is now. She’s your daughter and I’m the freak who doesn’t fit in that no one can explain. I wasn’t supposed to exist at all.”

Glancing over, Gibbs saw her eyes were filled with tears, and she was looking straight ahead, doing her damnedest not to let them fall. Hell if he was going to sit here and watch his daughter cry because she existed.

“Hey, knock it off!” he ordered. “So I don’t know what the explanation is for how I ended up with two daughters instead of one. I don’t really care right now. I’m just happy you’re both ok.”

Dawn glanced sideways at him, and spotting the flicker of hope in her eyes Gibbs let himself believe for the first time that this just might turn out all right. He reached out to put an arm around her, pulling her into a hug. He was a little surprised and privately delighted that Dawn didn’t resist.

“You can deal with having some weird girl you never even met for a daughter?” she asked with a sniffle, her voice a little muffled against his shoulder.

“You’re not weird,” Gibbs said firmly, kissing the top of her head. It felt good to have his daughter back where she belonged, even if it wasn’t the daughter he’d been expecting. Somewhere, he was sure Shannon was smiling. Crying, because she’d have wanted to hold this daughter too, but smiling.

“Who said I meant me?” Dawn asked impishly, in a lightning shift in tone. “I totally could have been talking about Buffy.”

Gibbs laughed.

“Well, I haven’t really met her yet, at least not as a grownup, so I guess you’ve got me there. Feel like going someplace a little bit more comfortable?”

“Depends,” Dawn said, sitting up and wiping her face with the back of her hand.

“On what?” Gibbs asked, worried what the answer might be. He didn’t want to be drawn into whatever games it was the IWC was playing.

“On whether or not there’s coffee,” Dawn replied. “I haven’t had any since before I got to NCIS this morning. And it was definitely an inferior specimen. My caffeine system is starting to protest all the blood in it.”

Gibbs shook his head in amazement as he helped her to her feet.

“I may not know where you came from, but you’re definitely mine,” he marveled. “There will be coffee. Right, Ziva?” he called, raising his voice.

A chuckle answered his question. At Dawn’s slightly confused look, Ziva explained.

“Rule 23: Never mess with a Marine’s coffee if you want to live.”

The slow smile that blossomed on his daughter’s face was better than coffee. It was nearly as amazing as the first time he’d seen Kelly smile.

“You have rules too?” Dawn asked as they started down the hill.

“Well, yeah,” Gibbs answered, mildly surprised at the implication that she and her older sister had a set of rules as well. “Everyone needs a code they can live by. Shannon- your mother- started it, and I’ve continued the tradition.  
There’s about fifty of them. I guess I’ll have to start teaching you. Rule 1 is never screw over your partner.”

“Hm. That’s a good one, we should definitely work it in,” Dawn said thoughtfully. “We’re only up to the forties. But our rule 1 is a little more basic.”

“Yeah? What’s your Rule 1?” Gibbs asked, curious what would trump his Rule 1.

“Don’t die,” Dawn replied seriously.

Gibbs nodded, putting one hand on her shoulder to steer her toward where they’d parked.

“That’s a good one,” he told her softly.

\---

They ended up bringing Dawn back to NCIS headquarters.

Dawn had been perfectly amenable to going pretty much anywhere with them as long as it involved coffee, and once she discovered that her father also was a coffee fiend, she seemed to trust that he would know where to find a decent brew. She’d also been oddly pleased to be introduced to Ziva. Gibbs had decided to wait until later before asking. Build trust first.

When they stepped out of the elevator doors, he tried not to laugh as DiNozzo’s face first brightened, then fell as he realized he was smiling at Gibbs’ daughter and self-preservation instinct kicked in.

“Boss! You found her!”

“I wasn’t lost,” Dawn informed him testily.

“I didn’t mean ‘found’ in the sense of lost, I meant ‘found’ in the sense of located,” Tony hastily clarified, backing away as she continued to frown at him, glancing from Dawn to Gibbs and back again. “Boss, have you noticed that she has your glare? It’s uncanny. I’m going to shut up now.”

Dawn watched, bemused, as Tony slunk off in the direction of the lab.

“Is he always like this?” she asked curiously.

“Only when faced with a long lost Gibbs,” McGee said, smiling.

Unlike Dawn, he could also see the resemblance between her and her father- right down to the coffee cups held in the same hands. And seeing DiNozzo so discombobulated was making his month.

“Dawn, I hope you’re not too upset with me. I should have handled things better this morning.”

“No worries, Agent McGee,” Dawn assured him. “Honestly, I’m not sure there was going to be any way to tell me about my mother that didn’t get a drama queen reaction. Just be thankful I’m over my emo phase.”

“ _You_ were emo?” Ziva asked, eying her skeptically.

“Maybe not so much emo as just a flat out mess,” Dawn admitted. “In my defense, my teenage years weren’t exactly uneventful. My sister careened from one epic romantic drama to the next, when she finally started to settle down in college, our mom got sick and died. Then I got kidnapped for human sacrifice purposes and almost killed, Buffy was hurt, our surrogate father moved back to England about the time we could have used adult guidance the most, and right when I thought everything was finally getting better, Buffy got shot and in all the commotion, no one realized Tara had been hit too until I came home and found her on the floor.”

Gibbs felt the blood draining from his face at her matter of fact recitation of disaster, especially the part where Kelly had been shot and Dawn came home to what sounded suspiciously like a friend’s body. There had also been a little hitch in her voice before she said ‘hurt’ after ‘Buffy’ that his gut said meant there was a huge story there being edited.

“And all that was before Sunnydale collapsed and we were both broke and homeless,” Dawn concluded.

“Speaking of breaking news gently,” Ziva said at her driest, pinning Dawn with a slight glare, “perhaps it would be best if you sit down, yes?”

Gibbs sank into his chair.

“I should have been there,” he said hoarsely.

Dawn looked at him, and suddenly looked completely guilty.

“Um, Dad, you ok there?”

Gibbs nodded weakly.

“You’re going to have to fill me in on all the stuff I’ve missed at some point,” he told her.

“All right,” Dawn agreed, looking concerned.

Gibbs wanted to demand why the heck she was looking worried- he was the father here, it was his job to worry about her. And Kelly! From the sound of it, his girls needed someone worrying about them!

“But try to keep in mind when I do that I’m still here, and so is Buffy,” Dawn continued. “That stuff’s practically ancient history. We survived, and we’re more or less well adjusted despite it all.”

“More or less?” McGee asked cautiously.

Dawn shrugged.

“We have our moments now and then,” she said lightly.

Her tone didn’t fool anyone.

That was when DiNozzo returned, trailing in the wake of an extremely excited Abby.

“You found her! Oh my god, you found the missing Gibblet! And she knows now!” she squealed, throwing her arms around Dawn and hugging her so tightly that Dawn let out a surprised and somewhat muffled ‘eep!’  
DiNozzo gave Dawn a payback grin over Abby’s shoulder.

“She’s a hugger,” he informed her smugly.

“Noticed that,” Dawn gasped. “Hi again.”

“You are so lucky, you know. Gibbs is like the best dad ever. Gibbs… Gibbs! Are you ok?”

She released Dawn abruptly to stare at Gibbs, concern written all over her face as she took in his rattled state.

“He’ll be fine, Abby,” Ziva said reassuringly. “He just got a slightly abrupt catchup on major events in his daughter’s life. It was a bit of a shock.”

“Yeah, in retrospect, there should probably have been a stiff drink on hand for that,” Dawn said sheepishly. “When we get around to that ‘fill you in’ part, I’ll make sure the really horrifying parts have an alcohol chaser.”

“The really horrifying parts?” Ziva asked, raising an eloquent eyebrow. “These were not the really horrifying parts?”

“Yeah… those only come with time and trust,” Dawn replied. “No offense, but I don’t know you guys all that well. Besides, I think Dad looks shook up enough for one night.”

“A fair point,” Ziva conceded reluctantly. “But you do not need to worry about us listening in. We were just leaving.”

She looked pointedly at the others.

“We were?” Abby asked. “Oh, right, we were! Because it's evening and people go home from work at the end of the day! You should go home, too, Gibbs. Gibbses. This is so cool! You can go have a family dinner!”

Gibbs decided that Abby might have a point.

“Did you want to grab dinner? If not, I can drive you to your place.”

Dawn flushed in embarrassment.

“I, um, actually don’t have the keys to the place I’m supposed to move into yet.”

“What about your friends?” Gibbs asked. “Can’t they let you in?”

“Not sure if they’ll be awake or not,” Dawn admitted. “They generally work long hours, and I bet no one slept last night. And Buffy never sleeps on airplanes. It’s this whole weird thing she has, something about being too far up in the air with only a few millimeters of metal between her and falling.”

That wasn’t completely true, of course, but it wasn’t like she could explain that everyone else had headed down to Quantico to rendezvous with Riley’s crew to deal with Hostile Strike Force.

“Not to mention,” Dawn continued, “believe me when I say the security system on the new place is nothing to mess with. I don’t have the codes for the gate and the alarm system yet. So I’m definitely locked out.”

Gibbs shook his head.

“You’re not locked out,” he said.

“Gibbs never locks his door,” Abby informed her.

“You mean…” Dawn trailed off, cautious hope on her face.

“Of course you can stay at my place. You’re my daughter, you don’t think I’m going to leave you wandering the streets all night, do you?”

Dawn grinned. Seeing as he was dealing with one daughter back from the dead and one daughter he’d never known he had, she decided to skip telling him that she wouldn’t have wandered the streets so much as wandered over to her boyfriend’s. (Although said boyfriend was not at home- at least he better not be if he knew what was good for him.)

That could wait until tomorrow night. And maybe she should warn Graham first... although, being a Marine, he should be good for whatever parental intimidation her father cared to dish out to boyfriends. She had a feeling the male posturing coming up was going to be all kinds of fun to watch.

“Look at you being all dad-like.”

“See?” Abby chimed in. “What did I tell you? Best dad ever. And you will never need to worry about scary guys again.”

Dawn laughed.

“I don’t really have that problem, but I can tell Dad would definitely have been the type answering the front door and intimidating the hell out of petrified teenage boys without saying a word.”

Gibbs laughed as they all crowded into the elevator.


	19. Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

“Ok,” Buffy said, her pre-action outline finally done, “everyone knows what they’re doing, right?”  
This was the one part of working with Riley’s group that she hated. All the formality and advance planning. At least Riley dealt with the paperwork. It was never so complicated when it was just the Scooby gang, or even when it was her and Faith, or her and the minis.

She was pleased to see nothing but nods, and a confident grin from Faith. After spending half the afternoon thrashing out this plan, plus sending an advance team down to scout the base and make sure their targets were more or less where they’d expected them to be, everyone knew what to do by now. They even knew exactly where their vampires had gone to ground, another storage building.

Riley had insisted it made more sense to let his guys do the recon. He’d pointed out that a few more Marines on a Marine base would go unquestioned, whereas if the vamps realized there were Slayers sniffing around, there was no telling how they would react. Worst case, they’d get away clean, and then there was no telling where they’d pop up next- and how many of them there would be by the time they did.

Buffy had eventually given in, especially once Faith pointed out that left her a free hand to plan out how the actual operation should run- and kept her close enough that Dawn could come see her if she needed to. She hadn’t shown up, so Buffy was hoping that meant Dawn’s part of the plan was going well.

“Any questions?” Buffy asked.

It should have been perfunctory, since everyone had just said they knew what they were doing, but to her surprise, Riley raised his hand.

“Fraid so, Buff,” Riley said apologetically. “The obvious one. What are we going to do if NCIS show up in the middle of this? I haven’t said anything to them, and neither has Dawn as far as we know. But no matter what orders you gave, I really can’t see them letting this drop. Especially-“

“Trust me, soldier boy, she’s got it covered,” Faith said, smirking as she realized there were a few things Buffy hadn’t mentioned yet.

“You don’t know this Agent Gibbs,” Riley shot back, only to stop at the general merriment on the Slayers’ faces and the mild amusement on Willow’s. “All right, what have you not told us?”

“She knows Agent Gibbs pretty well,” Faith snickered. “On account of he’s her pops.”

Buffy gave her sister Slayer a look that suggested she was questioning her sanity.

“Pops? Really, Faith?” At Riley’s dumbfounded look, she nodded. “Yes, he really is my father.”

Riley sighed. Glancing at Graham, he could see that his long time friend was both amused and exasperated by this revelation- apparently he hadn’t heard about it yet, either. It seemed both Summers girls had been keeping things to themselves.

“Great, now there is definitely no way Gibbs is staying away, no matter what the President said.”

“I think he will,” Buffy replied. “He’s going to busy enough not to worry about what I’m up to.”

“Right, because you’d stay away if Dawn were the one standing here? No matter what some smart ass invented to keep you busy?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Buffy said slowly. “But that’s why I’m sure he won’t be here. I’m counting on him not being able to keep from going after his daughter.”

Riley gave her a long look.

“You’re planning on him chasing after Dawn.”

Buffy nodded brightly.

“Yep.”

“You do realize if he decides to go after you instead, this is going to be the biggest mess we’ve dealt with in years.”

“He won’t,” Buffy said confidently. “I know my dad, ok? He’s going to go after whoever he thinks needs help more. Right now, that’s not me.”

“Um, can I just point out the obvious?” Graham asked.

He had stayed out of the building argument up until this point, partly because pissing off the Slayer was never a good idea, and partly because he was not entirely cool with Buffy’s plan- he knew all the issues Dawn usually kept bottled up had been on a slow boil the last couple days. He couldn’t see how throwing her dad the NCIS agent- who she’d only just found out about- into the mix was going to help. But he also knew now was not a good time to have that fight.

At Buffy’s sharp look, he asked anyway.

“How is Gibbs supposed to know you’re not the one who needs help more? You are the one down here, where he knows there is a situation.”

“Dawn’s younger, and she’s the one who’s already been attacked by the vamps,” Buffy began. “He’s seen what that looked like- and he saw her right after, when she was still shaken up and injured. He’ll be worried that they could target her again. There’s no way he’s letting Dawn out of his sight tonight. She’s the sure thing. I’m the long shot. He’ll stick with her.”

“Yeah, but Buffy, you’re also the one he knows has been missing for years,” Graham countered.

“Actually, we think they thought she was dead,” Faith interrupted. “DNA results must have been quite the shock. Would have loved to be a fly on that wall.”

Graham’s eyes bugged out as he absorbed that information.

“Oh, good. He thought you were dead for years. That’s even better. He doesn’t know you’re a Slayer, and you’re heading down to Quantico. To the danger instead of away from it.”

Buffy stopped. She hadn’t thought about it in that light.

Seeing her expression, Riley groaned.

“Oops?” she said. “Ok, so there might be a slight flaw in the plan. But Dawn will figure something out. She knows this is important. Don’t give me that look, buster! It’s been ages since someone who knows me didn’t know!”

Willow waved off Riley's concern.

“I’m sure it will be fine. When Dawn bailed on NCIS, Xander waited until we were done, then pointed your dad right at her. He’d have to be a lot less smart than we think he is to miss her, and I’m guessing he’d have to try pretty hard to piss her off enough to deliberately lose him.”

“Ok, fine, that’s Agent Gibbs accounted for,” Riley said, though he still looked doubtful. “What about the rest of his team?”  
He was greeted with a puzzled look from Buffy, though Faith and Willow looked like the light bulb had just switched on.

“Presidential orders?” she said hopefully. “The rest of them aren’t related to me. There’s no reason for them to risk their career.”

Riley shook his head.

“Great. So now I have to not only hope you manage to not destroy the entire base, I have to worry about NCIS agents traipsing through the middle of this highly dangerous operation.”

“I’m not going to destroy the entire base!” Buffy protested. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

She was pretty sure Riley was joking about that, but he’d mentioned it several times now. As had Graham. And Xander.

“Man’s got a point, B, you did wreck Sunnydale.”

“After blowing up your high school,” Xander pointed out helpfully in her ear piece.

“And you burned down that gym,” Willow added at the same time.

Buffy glared at them. Faith cracked up.

“Come on, B. Let’s get this party started. For the record, everyone’s going to say I told you so if they do show.”

“You really think they will?” Buffy asked as the two Slayers headed out for the suspected vampire nest.

“Are you kidding? We’re all betting on it. Personally, my money’s on David.”

“You’re just saying that because you want to spar with her.”

“No, I’m saying that because I want to see a David and a Summers in the same room as each other again.”

Buffy made a face.

“Yeah, because last time was so much fun.”

Faith laughed.

“Lighten up, B. Come on, let’s go beat up the vamps that beat on your little sis.”

\---

They stopped to pick up pizza on the way home. Gibbs was still a bit bemused by this unexpected second daughter, especially when she showed flashes of Shannon, like anchovies on her pizza. Dawn had a jingle about it, which she informed him her sister and their friends would never let her live down, so she might as well do it for him now and get it over with. (He grinned and told her he didn’t see anything wrong with it. He could easily picture her coming up with it in a moment of early teenage enthusiasm, and her sister reminding her about it at every opportunity.)

It didn’t occur to him until he was actually opening the front door to worry what Dawn might think of the house. It probably should have, given that just a few days ago he’d been thinking about what Kelly would say if she saw the state of it.

Turned out he didn’t need to worry, though. When Dawn stepped through the door, her face lit up.

“This is a lot like our house in Sunnydale,” she said, turning from side to side in the front hall.

“You mean the one on Revello Drive?” Gibbs asked, hoping to hear more.

Dawn nodded, still looking all around.

Walking into the living room, she added, “your kitchen goes across the back of the house, but ours was to one side. Our living room just kept going back. The back door’s in the same place, though. And you don’t have a formal dining room, ours was over there. Not that we ever really used it as a dining room except for holidays anyway.”

She turned around and caught sight of the couch. Her nose wrinkled exactly as he’d imagined Kelly’s would.

“Ok, so that’s not much like Sunnydale, but maybe Buffy will recognize it. Who knows, maybe it will help with bringing back her memory.”

Gibbs wondered what exactly she meant by bringing back her sister’s memory. Were the girls aware they’d been manipulated? And what did Dawn know about her origins?

Dawn plopped down cheerfully, bouncing once or twice to test the couch’s decrepitude. Gibbs tried not to laugh at the sight as he went to grab paper plates from the kitchen. He started to bring a beer for himself, and hesitated before putting it back, mostly because he couldn’t make up his mind whether or not it would be ok to hand Dawn one also.

He hadn’t been kidding when he told her he was out of practice at the dad thing. Sure, he’d handed beers to Abby and Ziva before, but that was different. He’d only ever known them as adults. He’d never really given much thought to what would have happened when his baby girl was old enough to drink. And it wasn’t as if he’d had time to get used to the idea. Better to skip it for now.

He returned to the living room to find Dawn fiddling with the dial on his ancient television.

“Afraid the TV’s not fancy,” he told her apologetically,

Dawn shrugged.

“No worries. I don’t watch that much anyway. Oh, god, not Old Yeller.”

“What’s wrong with Yeller?” Gibbs asked curiously. “Best doggone dog in the West.”

“You have definitely not known me long enough to deal with the weepy mess I turn into at the end. I mean, he shoots his own dog. There are some things a kid should just never have to do, you know?”

Gibbs watched in amusement as Dawn flipped channels rapid fire until she found a harmless movie- the remake of The Mummy.  
They ate in companionable silence broken by occasional small talk, mostly Dawn making fun of the movie, until she snorted when the line ‘no harm ever came of reading a book’ came up.

“Yeah, right,” she muttered.

As if she realized she’d just been too honest, she transparently tried to change the subject.

“So, is it just you? Before we got here, I was all set to ask about stepmothers, but judging by the bachelor pad look, I’m going with no on that front.”

Gibbs laughed, although he fully intended on revisiting the ‘no harm ever came of reading a book’ at some point.

“You do have a couple of ex-stepmothers, but these days it’s just me.”

“Ex-stepmothers? As in, more than one?” Dawn asked, raising an expectant eyebrow. “You can’t possibly expect me to leave it at that. How many?”

“Three,” Gibbs said sheepishly.

Dawn giggled, but mercifully let it drop.

“Do you have any other family?” she asked. “Do we have uncles? Aunts? Cats? Crazy cousins?”

“No aunts or uncles,” Gibbs told her. “My mother died when I was still in high school, but my dad is still alive, lives up in Pennsylvania. I’m sure he’ll make the trip down when I tell him the news. Guess I should call Shannon’s mother, too.”

“Wow. Grandparents,” Dawn said wonderingly, as if it were a completely new concept.

“You didn’t have grandparents growing up?” Gibbs asked.

He still didn’t fully understand how Kelly could have been persuaded that any of what the Summers girls accepted as their past was true, but he wanted to hear it all the same. He wanted to understand how his daughters had grown up, what made them the women they were today.

Dawn shook her head, picking at her pizza crust.

“I guess none of that was real anyway,” she said with a frown, “but what we remember is that Mom’s parents died when she was younger, and Hank was from the East Coast. Grammy had a bad hip and couldn’t travel, so when we were little we only saw her once every couple years when Hank sprang for plane tickets for all of us. Once he left, we sent letters and got Christmas and birthday cards until Grammy passed.”

She paused, trying to tally up years and milestones.

“I think I was thirteen when that happened. Mom was afraid there would be a scene if we went to the funeral, so we just sent flowers with Buffy’s name and mine. Wasn’t too long after that Hank quit coming for visitation.”

“Tell me about Hank,” Gibbs said, trying not to tense up at the thought of the mystery man who had taken his place in his daughters’ lives and then casually tossed them aside like they didn’t matter.

Dawn shrugged.

“There’s not much to tell, really. He’s your prototypical deadbeat dad, or absentee father if you prefer. Haven’t talked to him in ten years. We stopped wasting any energy on him when he flaked out on Mom’s funeral. He left Buffy to handle everything on her own- it wasn’t enough that she was the one who found Mom, she had to deal with everything that came after, from telling me to arranging the funeral and handling the estate. Giles helped a lot, but still… Hank couldn’t even be bothered faxing back the paperwork when Buffy needed signatures to set up legal arrangements for me when she became my guardian. We had to just count on his staying MIA to not screw things up if it ever came to that.”

Gibbs privately promised himself that if they ever found Hank Summers, there would be a reckoning. Even if the man had known he wasn’t the girls’ father, he must have realized cutting them out of his life without any explanation was going to hurt them. And leaving a college kid to handle funeral arrangements and guardianship of her minor sister on her own was unforgivable.

“Your sister-“

Dawn turned to face him, squashing herself into one end of the couch with one leg pulled up in front of her, the other trailing down onto the floor. Gibbs couldn’t tell if it was defensive, or just her getting more comfortable. She did have the end of the couch closer to the door…

“You’re not going to get hung up on her name, are you? She's kind of sensitive about it.”

Gibbs almost laughed. All the places to take that opening, and she was worried he was going to take issue with her sister being called Buffy?

“No, I guess your friend Xander had a point. She’s answered to Buffy a lot longer than Kelly, and it’s her call either way.”

Dawn relaxed. Evidently she’d seen that as being a sticking point. Gibbs reminded himself that it didn’t seem like his girls had had any stable father figure other than the mysterious Mr. Giles, so it was doubtful she really understood how fathers thought.

“Yeah, Xander’s perceptive like that. Also kind of protective. He’s my unofficial big brother. Get used to him being around, by the way. He’s part of the package deal.”

Gibbs nodded. He was still no fan of Giles, but Harris he could respect. And alienating his girls’ friends was no good way to win their trust.

“I take it Willow and Faith are, too?” he asked wryly.

“Yep,” Dawn chirped happily. “Don’t worry, you’ll love them as much as we do.”

“You know them from Sunnydale,” Gibbs prompted.

“Xander and Willow are Buffy’s best friends,” Dawn confirmed. “Faith moved to town a couple years after we did, and she was on her own, so we kind of unofficially adopted her. Hope you don’t mind doing the stepdad thing, cause she’s going to be sort of yours, too. Which, before you freak out, is going to weird her out just as much as you.”

Gibbs caught a look in her eye that hinted that Faith’s childhood had been every bit as bad as he’d feared for Kelly since Ducky had first confided in him about the Council. He didn’t fully understand the dynamics of their little group yet, but he was getting the impression they were extremely tight knit. Family by choice, if not by blood.

“You wanted to say something about Buffy?” Dawn prompted, finally circling back around to the original topic.

“I was just going to ask where she was.”


	20. Drunken Lullabies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For years, Gibbs has believed his daughter died with her mother. Buffy and Dawn believed their father walked away from them. Rule 51 applies.

Dawn didn’t tense up, but she did get a wary look in her eye.

“Before I answer that, I need to know who’s asking- our father, or an NCIS agent.”

“Does it matter?” Gibbs asked, a bit taken aback.

Dawn nodded.

“Quite a bit, actually. One deserves a real answer, the other is so far off the edge of the map he might need help getting back.”

“It’s your father asking, so I sure hope he’s the one who deserves the real answer,” Gibbs replied, matching her seriousness.

He stopped, abruptly put something together.

“You’re a distraction, aren’t you? This was just to get me off your sister’s trail.”

Dawn smirked, but there was an edge of pride to her expression.

“Graham said you were quick,” she said, sounding pleased. “But I’m not just a distraction. If I didn’t want to spend time with you, I wouldn’t be here. I was asked to make sure you keep away from Buffy tonight, but I could have had you chasing after me all over town. Buffy told me what needed to happen, not how. She’s pretty good about that.”

She paused.

“I could have gotten away from you at Arlington if I wanted to,” she added quietly. “But then you talked to me and it seemed like you actually cared.”

“Of course I care!” Gibbs replied instantly.

The reply had been instinct, as well as honest, but he could see Dawn was happy to hear him say it. She’d taken a chance telling him the truth- one she probably hadn’t thought through beforehand. She definitely hadn’t considered all the possible consequences.

“Your sister’s down in Quantico,” Gibbs said heavily. That was the only place that made sense. “Those others- Rosenberg, Harris, and Giles, they went down there after they left NCIS.”

Dawn nodded, but if anything, she looked more at ease than before.

“If you want to be accurate, they went to meet up with Buffy and Faith. Willow and Giles are going to Quantico, but Xander isn’t. He’s mission control tonight.”

Gibbs sized her up, and came to the conclusion that this was some sort of test. If he reacted the wrong way, he could forget seeing Kelly. And he hadn’t missed that she’d said that it was Buffy who’d given her marching orders. This wasn’t from Mr. Giles or someone else at the Council. This was his daughter’s own doing.

“And you expect me to just sit here while your sister goes after the guys who did that to you.”

He gestured at his daughter’s face, which was a riot of colors, since Dawn hadn’t bothered trying to hide her now healing bruises with makeup. Just looking at them made him want to beat whoever had put them there- and do whatever it took to keep them away from both his daughters.

“Expect? No, hope is more like it,” Dawn replied with a sigh. “Buffy said… well, she explained you to me, or at least what she remembers of you. So I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but the guys who did this are out of your league. Leave it to Buffy. She’ll handle the mess in Quantico. She knows what she’s doing. You don’t- which in our world, makes you an easy target.”

“Your world? The world with vampires?”

Now Dawn raised a startled eyebrow. He’d apparently managed to genuinely surprise her with that.

“You already know about vampires?” she asked slowly. “So I can skip the whole speech?”

“I know they exist, and they’re stronger than humans,” Gibbs admitted. “But I don’t see-“

“Ok, how about if I tell you that ‘stronger than humans’ makes them sound way more harmless than they really are?” Dawn interrupted. “These bruises you’re so freaked out about? They were holding back when they did that. If they’d hit me in the head full strength, they would have broken my skull. It’s only bruises because they decided they wanted to play with their food.”

The matter of fact way she said it was nearly as upsetting to him as what she was saying. Yet as she did, the pieces of that puzzling conversation at the Pentagon abruptly slotted into place with sickening clarity. If things had gone just a little differently that night, he very well might have discovered he had a second daughter while investigating her murder.

“This is supposed to make me feel better about my daughter being down there fighting them by herself?” Gibbs demanded incredulously.

“She’s not by herself,” Dawn said patiently. “She’s got Faith, Willow, and Giles, plus Riley and his team. They can handle it. If you were there you’d only be in the way- Buffy would have to worry about keeping you safe the entire time. The weapons you know how to use won’t do you any good against vamps. You aren’t used to the weapons we use. And you’d be a huge target the second someone realized your relation to her. That’s the reason I’m not there either, and Xander’s running the control post and ready to call in reinforcements if necessary. Buffy wants us at a safe distance.”

“You mean if I were there I’d only be a liability,” Gibbs said flatly.

The look on Dawn’s face suggested she’d been trying to avoid phrasing it like that to save his ego, but that it was exactly what she meant.

“That’s blunt, but yeah, I guess that’s what you’d call it,” she admitted. “The whole point of having you chase me instead of her was to keep you away from something you’re not prepared for.”

“You’re pretty calm about your sister dealing with people Colonel Finn tells me would have killed you immediately if they’d realized who you were,” Gibbs said, sinking back against the couch cushions.

“I’ve had lots of practice,” Dawn said with a shrug. “I’m more worried that this isn’t a one off than that Buffy or Faith will get seriously hurt or killed. Buffy’s been the Slayer since I was a kid. I grew up with this- vampires, demons, Buffy fighting, all of it. And I’ve been watching her all this time, so I have a much better handle on what my sister is capable of. You remember her as a little girl, and now that you found her again, I bet you probably want to wrap her up in bubble wrap to keep her safe. I know her as the strongest woman you will ever meet.”

Gibbs shook his head. Letting his daughter walk into danger went against everything he knew. He was still tempted to handcuff Dawn to something unbreakable, call Ziva to come babysit, and burn rubber down to Quantico to bring Kelly home.

Dawn sighed.

“If it helps at all, I can promise you from experience, every hit I took, they’ll get back with interest before they’re dust. Buffy doesn’t mess around, and neither does Faith. ‘Hurt my family and I end you’ isn’t a rule, but it’s been under consideration for a while.”

“You do what you have to do for family,” Gibbs said, half to himself. He remembered Mike telling him that was the unspoken rule.

From the other end of the couch, Dawn nodded.

“We always have.”

“You told DiNozzo you’ve been tortured before.”

It wasn’t what he’d intended to say, and Dawn looked floored that he’d gone there, but it was at the front of his mind now that he understood what his daughters were doing tonight.

“It was a long time ago,” Dawn said, her voice sad and oddly gentle.

He realized she was still trying to protect him. It was backwards. He was supposed to protect her.

“Tell me.”

He’d meant it as an order, but it came out more as a plea. He had to know, because he had to make sure that it could never happen again.

“Are you sure you really want to hear it?” Dawn asked softly. “I promise you will sleep much better not knowing.”

“No, I need to know. I’m your father, Dawn. I am the person you are supposed to be able to count on. I wasn’t there then, but I’m here now.”

_I will keep you safe._

Dawn chewed her lip, and he wondered for a sickening moment if he’d pushed too hard too soon.

“Ok, but you might want the alcohol for this,” she warned him.

He nodded.

“Downstairs,” he said.

To his surprise, she didn’t wait on the couch, but followed him to the basement. It didn’t bother her- she actually seemed to be more at ease once she smelled the wood.

Her jaw dropped when she saw the _Kelly II_.

“There is a boat,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “Buffy was right.”

“She told you about it?” Gibbs asked, curious. He hadn’t realized Kelly had come inside the house. Nothing had been touched, so he’d assumed she had stayed outside.

“Yeah,” Dawn said, still staring at the boat. “Our mom- Shannon, not Joyce- told her to go down to the basement, and when she did, there was a boat.”

Gibbs tried to digest that nonsensical explanation. Both women were dead, and had been for quite a few years.

“In a dream, I mean,” Dawn clarified, catching sight of his face as she walked slowly around the boat. “How do you get the boat out of the basement when you’re done? Wouldn’t it make more sense to build it out back in a shed or garage or something?”

Gibbs shook his head.

“You’re taking this remarkably well,” he observed, rummaging around for his coffee cup.

Dawn shrugged, still mostly focused on the _Kelly_.

“I live in interesting times,” she told him, running a cautious finger over the frame. “Xander does woodwork when he has the time. He’ll love this. His woodshop is fancier, but it doesn’t feel as comfortable as this. This feels… lived in. Very you.”

Gibbs pulled the bourbon bottle down and poured himself a measure. Dawn hopped up onto the workbench, waiting until he had the alcohol in hand before she started. She absentmindedly fiddled with whatever was at hand on the bench next to her as she tried to decide how to begin.

“What did Riley tell you?” she asked. “Cause I’m sure he said something when he explained why I was calling in to him.”

Gibbs noted that she had managed to avoid any further mention of the night he’d first seen her- keeping his mind on anything but Quantico. The investigator in him suspected this wasn’t the first time she’d been the distraction.

“Some doomsday cult tried to sacrifice you to end the world,” Gibbs replied. “He made it sound like a bunch of crazy cases. But I don’t think you’d be telling me to pour myself a drink if that’s all it was.”

Dawn shook her head.

“No, not crazy cases,” she said. “They really could have ended the world. I was the human sacrifice they needed. If they’d managed to bleed me out like they’d intended, Earth as we know it would have been destroyed.”

“What happened?” Gibbs asked, steeling himself to hear it.

“The Cliffs Notes version? There was a hellgoddess who got exiled to this dimension because she scared even the other hellgods. So they imprisoned her here in a human body. But she found out that if she made the right sacrifice at the right time in the right place, she could escape. Side effect of her escape plan would have been a whole bunch of dimensions bleeding together, and most of them were filled with very unlovely things- dragons, demons, a whole mess of things that generally would have found humans very tasty.”

“And she tortured you.”

Dawn shrugged.

“The worst torture was psychological. I was fifteen and tied up on top of a tower built by crazy people, terrified that my blood was about to bring on the apocalypse, with a skanky hellgoddess waiting to kill my sister when she showed up and very upfront about me dying being part of the plan. The pain from being cut wasn’t really a big deal compared to that- especially once I realized Buffy wasn’t going to get there in time to stop them from cutting me. Up until then, I was still young and sheltered enough to believe my big sister really could do anything, no matter what the odds, no matter how impossible. In my mind, she was this invulnerable superhero- one of the ones you never see bleed. Even though I should have known better.”

The father Gibbs had never stopped being couldn’t let the guilt in her voice go unanswered.

“You were fifteen,” he told her. “Teenagers aren’t always good at understanding risks.”

Dawn shook her head ruefully.

“Thanks for trying to make me feel better about it,” she said, “But don’t make excuses for me. I was an idiot with two left feet forever getting kidnapped by vampires or attacked by demons. Buffy was always the one who had to bail me out. She’d drag me home to Mom, promising all sorts of dire retribution if I ever did something that stupid again, and then not rat me out, even when it was completely my fault. So somehow I thought that time would be like all the others- Buffy would swoop in right in the nick of time, and everything would be ok. Except that time, it finally wasn’t. And Mom wasn’t around to go home to anymore.”

Dawn’s face crumpled up briefly as she spoke about Joyce Summers’ absence, but got herself back under control. She’d been right, after hearing that, he did want a drink. But he wasn’t about to start drinking yet- if he did, he had a feeling his daughter would be putting him to bed instead of the other way around.

“The world is still here,” Gibbs said, trying to grasp at anything that would make her story not be true, even though he had a sinking feeling that it was.

“Yeah, the world is still here,” Dawn said, a slight bitterness to her voice he couldn’t quite identify. “Buffy found a way to save the day in the end. She beat the hellgoddess, and once the blood stopped flowing, the walls between dimensions were restored.”

Gibbs’ gut told him there was more to the story, but he let Dawn believe he was satisfied with what she’d said. He was hoping with time and trust- the things she’d said earlier were needed if he wanted the full story- he would eventually get to hear what she was still editing.

“And Buffy?”

He didn’t miss the flash of pain in her eyes when he asked, despite having used the name he still couldn’t quite resign himself to.

“That part is her story to tell,” Dawn said, her voice faltering. “If she wants to.”

Suddenly the sound of Kelly playing “Hush Little Baby” echoed through the basement. Dawn had been tapping on the old tape player and accidentally hit ‘play’.

“That’s Buffy,” she whispered in shock. “When she was little.”

Gibbs nodded.

“It’s a tape she sent me when I was in Iraq,” he said.

Dawn looked at him, and he could see the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

“Buffy… had to go away after that for a while,” she told him. “I missed her so much while she was gone. If I’d had a tape like that, I’d have worn it out.”

“I almost did,” Gibbs confessed.

He’d caught that pause, and his gut told him that whatever she wasn’t saying, the part that was her sister’s to tell if she wanted to, was really, really bad. Worse than a frightened teenager almost getting killed and the world almost ending. He suspected it had to do with Kelly being hurt far worse than Dawn had been. It scared the hell out of him, but he had to show Dawn he wasn’t going to back away from either of them because of it.

Gibbs walked over to pull his daughter into a hug.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. Neither does your sister. I just want to understand. And I want you both to be safe.”

Dawn laughed.

“In the immortal words of _The Princess Bride_ , get used to disappointment,” she told him. “I barely remember what it’s like to live a life other people would call ‘safe’.”

“Lot of good words in that movie,” Gibbs mused. He hadn’t watched it in years, but Kelly had loved it. “I think I still have the tape upstairs someplace.”

“Seriously?” Dawn demanded, straightening up. “In that case, if you’ve decided you don’t want to drink yourself insensible after the story of my first serious hostage experience, we’re watching the Princess Bride.”

Gibbs took a chance.

“With or without ice cream?”

The look his youngest daughter gave him suggested his sanity was in question.

“With, of course.”

\---

After _Princess Bride_ , Dawn had been thrilled to find _Clue_ also in the same box of videos he never watched anymore. Gibbs had been faintly surprised they still worked. He noticed her tap out messages on her cell phone a couple times. He didn’t mention it, though he was curious who she was checking in with since Colonel Finn and her sister were both busy. He was equally curious what she was saying about her current location.

It wasn’t until well after midnight that Dawn finally confessed to a need to sleep.

“I can go to bed voluntarily, or I can fall asleep on the couch. It’s been a long, intense day and I know my limits,” she told him cheerfully.

“You can sleep in Kelly’s room,” Gibbs said, leading her upstairs.

When he opened the door, Dawn peered curiously around him, and was relieved to discover that the room hadn’t been kept as a shrine or anything. It was just a sparse guest room. Gibbs rummaged in the closet and came up with a set of sheets that would fit the bed, in the process knocking something to the floor he’d forgotten was still in that closet. He’d never quite been able to bring himself to get rid of it.

Dawn pounced on it with glee.

“Oh my god, Mr. Gordo!” she shrieked. “Buffy’s going to flip!”

Gibbs turned around to face her in shock. The stuffed pig had been Kelly’s favorite possession, and always lived on her bed. From the sound of it, she must have been given a replacement when she was turned into Buffy Summers.

“You know about the pig?” he asked in disbelief.

It wasn’t that he doubted that the Summers girls were his daughters- as Abby often pointed out, DNA didn’t lie, and with results this unbelievable, she’d triple checked her findings. There were also so many little things about Dawn that he could trace to himself or Shannon or their parents. She was his. But if he had still harbored doubts, this would have sold him.

“Are you kidding?” Dawn replied. “The only time Buffy ever used Slayer strength on me when she was in her right mind was when I got paint on Mr. Gordo. He’s the thing she missed most after Sunnydale collapsed. We got her a new pig, but it didn’t look the same and she’s never quite gotten over him.”

To his surprise, Dawn whipped out her cell phone and snapped a picture.

“What are you doing?” Gibbs asked.

“Mwahaha!” Dawn chortled in a cartoon villain voice, “He’s all mine!”

She tapped furiously on her phone, then placed the pig carefully on the dresser.

“All that and you’re leaving him there?” Gibbs said, bemused by the abrupt switch.

“Yeah, after everything I’ve been through, it would be a shame to have my sister kill me in my sleep because she thought I was molesting her childhood stuffed animal,” Dawn said. “I don’t know when exactly she was planning on coming to see you, but I bet she gets here a lot faster when she sees the text I just sent her.”

\---

Buffy surveyed the wreckage. It was a good thing Riley’s team had alerted the base authorities that they were running a ‘training mission’ here tonight, because between what Faith had dubbed the Special Forces of Darkness, Riley’s group, her, and Faith, they had made quite the mess- even without the high explosives Riley had vetoed. On the bright side, it was nice to know that cleanup was someone else’s worry for a change.

“Does the sudden quiet mean the show’s over?” Xander asked in her earpiece. “Should I send the drivers to bring you back to the house now?”

“That would be a yes to the first question and a ‘dear god, yes’ to the second,” Buffy said. She knew from experience that while the adrenaline was still pumping she wouldn’t feel anything, but in about ten minutes, 15 tops, all the hits the vamps had gotten in were going to start making themselves felt.

“Everyone still in one piece?” Buffy asked what was left of the building at the same time as Xander asked the same thing.

“Functional,” Giles groaned from his perch on a pile of wood and splinters that had at one point been some form of furniture. “But I’m afraid that’s all I can say. It’s beginning to cross my mind that I may be getting too old for field work.”

“I’m good,” Willow replied, absently brushing hair out of her face. She was considerably less rumpled than the rest of them, having used magic instead of muscle. “But I’m giving fair warning now that I don’t want to be woken up before noon.”

“Seconded,” Faith agreed, eying a nasty gash on her upper arm, and debating whether it was worth stitching or if she could just tape it up and wait for Slayer healing to do its thing.

“We’re mostly good,” Riley told her. “My guys picked up a few injuries, but nothing that will keep anyone out of commission for more than a week or two. Are you going to track down who is ultimately responsible for this? I don’t think we want to have to do this again in a couple of months.”

“No, I plan to get to the bottom of it,” Buffy said. “Although I may need some help- if you can pull records on who these guys were before they were dead, I’d like to find out the official version of where they’ve been so we can figure out who was turned where and when.”

She handed over the dog tags she’d ripped off of several of her opponents before they dusted.

Riley nodded.

“Not a problem. I’m thinking we’re all taking a three day weekend, but I can have my office staff run down what you need and have it all ready for you on Monday.”

“Works for me,” Buffy nodded. “I’ve got that whole family thing to deal with, anyway. Speaking of which, I wonder how Dawn’s doing…”

In her earpiece, Xander snickered.

“She texted to say she’s sleeping at your dad’s place. Better tell Graham he’s in for it next time he takes his girlfriend out.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. Dawn could tell Graham herself in the morning, assuming she hadn’t already.  
She pulled out her own phone and found that as she’d expected, she had a text from her sister waiting. Pulling it up, she found it was a photo message- a stuffed pig she recognized all too well, along with the words _Look what I have, Slayer!_

She glared at the phone.

“Xander? Change of plans. I’m not coming directly back to the house. Graham? Do you mind dropping me off? You probably want to know where Dawn is anyway…”

She trailed off as she stepped outside and saw someone who should not have been there.  
Ziva David was standing next to one of Riley’s men, part of the team assigned perimeter guard. His expression said he was not looking forward to the ass-chewing he was sure was coming.

“Agent David,” Buffy said carefully, wondering how long the other woman had been there.

A raised eyebrow and a smirk told her that her father’s agent had definitely been there for at least some of the interesting part of tonight’s activity.

“I appreciate your concern for my safety, Miss Summers, but I think I am old enough to take care of myself, don’t you?”

Buffy nodded at the Marine, and he took the opportunity to get well away from whatever was about to go down. Bullets and vampires were one thing, angry Slayers and furious COs were another.

“Buffy?”

Graham stopped short at the sight of David. Then he grinned.

“Told you,” he said smugly.

“All right, all right, you had a point,” Buffy groused. “But do we see my dad here anywhere? No. So the plan still worked!”

“I assume the next part of this plan involved you actually speaking to your father,” Ziva said pointedly.

“Yeah, working on that too,” Buffy responded, annoyed that she was catching it from all sides.

“Were you intending to drive directly there?” Ziva asked.

Buffy took a moment before she responded, evaluating the taller woman.

“Were you thinking escort, tail, or showing me the way?”

“Any of those options would work,” Ziva replied. She paused. “I would also be willing to give you a ride.”

Graham looked at Buffy, waiting for her decision.

“All right. Graham, I’m sure Dawn will text you, if for no other reason than you have her precious caffeine at your place.”

“If by caffeine you mean coffee, you will find Gibbs’ house does not lack caffeine,” Ziva said.

“Yeah, but Dawn’s picky,” Buffy replied as Graham nodded before heading back inside to share the ‘told you so’ joy.

Ziva led Buffy to her car, which turned out to be a snazzy little Mini.

Buffy eyed it appreciatively.

“Nice.”

“I think so,” Ziva replied, pleased. “You may wish to buckle down. The boys always complain about my driving.”

Buffy shrugged and let the mangled saying slide as she snapped her belt into place. Hey, the only foreign language she spoke was French. Really bad French.

“Yeah, people complain about mine a lot, too.”


	21. All Is Well, Safely Rest

Buffy didn’t see what anyone complained about. Ziva’s driving was downright soothing. The only awkward part was not having any good ideas on how to break the ice. Somehow Dawn’s burning question about what really happened to Ari didn’t seem like the best place to start. She knew she wouldn’t appreciate it if someone asked her out of the blue what had happened to Anya or Tara.

Glancing sideways at the woman, she caught Ziva doing the same thing. 

“I suppose I could begin,” Ziva said. “Since I am the one violating orders by seeking you out. You are aware of who my father is, just as I am aware of who yours is. You are no doubt wondering what our relationship is.”

Buffy blinked. Not really what she’d been thinking about, but what the hey.

“Among other things,” she said. “If it makes this less awkward, I’m with Dawn- Dad hasn’t killed you, so you must be ok.”

Ziva paused for a moment.

“I suppose that is a fair assessment if she has dealt with my father.”

“No, that joy was mine,” Buffy muttered, trying not to let too much of her uncomplimentary feelings toward the Mossad director bleed into her tone. She was pretty sure you needed both a mind and a mouth like Spike’s to do Eli David full justice. “Sorry, that wasn’t very nice of me. For all I know, you’re daddy’s girl, too.”

Buffy knew she’d stepped into an emotional minefield the second the words left her mouth. Ziva visibly tensed.

“Never apologize,” she said shortly. “It is a sign of weakness.”

Buffy’s eyebrows went up. The restrained anger didn’t seem to be directed at her, and the words had a rote quality to them- along with an undertone that said they were more than just a statement, they were a declaration of loyalty. She wasn’t entirely sure to who, though.

“That’s one philosophy,” Buffy said slowly. “But we’re fans of ‘it will not kill you to say sorry’. Believe me, I would know.”

“You apologize frequently?” Ziva asked, still tense but winding down.

“Yep,” Buffy replied, regretting she didn’t know Ziva better, because she would have loved to add _died on occasion too_. “Hasn’t killed me yet.”

“It is one of Gibbs’ rules,” Ziva said, sounding thoroughly discombobulated. “Did he not teach them to you?”

Buffy shrugged. 

“Could be he tried. I had a pretty wicked case of amnesia until recently. Course, even if he tried, there’s no guarantee it took. I’m not that great with rules.”

Ziva snorted.

“That I believe.”

“Hey, it’s not like you’re the poster girl for rule following right now, either!” Buffy pointed out.

“It is better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission is another of your father’s rules,” Ziva said smugly. “Rule 18. And I thought it would be preferable to seek the director’s forgiveness for misinterpreting orders than to seek Gibbs’ forgiveness if something had gone wrong with your operation tonight.”

To Ziva’s surprise, Buffy laughed.

“Misinterpreting. I’m going to remember that one. Out of curiosity, what were you going to do if things had gone wrong? I had a squad of specially trained Marines on standby. If things went so bad that they were all wiped out, what was your plan?”

Ziva didn’t even think about it.

“Call Gibbs.”

Buffy sighed.

“Guess it’s a good thing things went right, cause somehow I don’t think that would have worked very well.”

“He came for me when I needed saving,” Ziva said quietly.

When Buffy didn’t respond, Ziva chanced a look at her passenger. Buffy was regarding her thoughtfully. She suddenly realized her comment could easily be taken in a way she had not intended.

“I did not mean to imply-“ Ziva began.

“Huh? No, it’s ok. Faith and Willow told me about earlier, you know. I’m glad my dad found a family to gather around him.”

“You are not angry?” Ziva asked.

Buffy shook her head. 

“What, that my father wasn’t living like a hermit or a crazy person the whole time I didn’t remember him? If anything, I’m relieved he had people he cared about. It would be worse to think he was alone that whole time. God knows there was enough damage done as it is.”

“But?” Ziva prompted, deciding to leave Buffy’s last statement alone for the time being. Based on what Dawn had said in the bullpen earlier, she suspected the damage done was extensive.

“But that need to save me would probably have gotten him killed quick if you’d called him tonight,” Buffy said sadly. “That’s why I aimed Dawn at him.”

“Also, she is more vulnerable,” Ziva said thoughtfully. “Thus protecting two birds with one stone.”

Buffy snorted.

“From a certain perspective, maybe. She’s got mommy issues, daddy issues… actually, after the horrorfest that was our last couple years in Sunnyhell, her issues probably have family issues. But she does know how to survive a vampire attack. Don’t think for one second Dawn can’t protect herself. She wouldn’t still be walking and talking otherwise. She could have probably taken care of Dad in a situation if it came to that.”

“Your father would see her as more vulnerable.”

“I don’t know about more vulnerable,” Buffy said thoughtfully. “But she’s younger-“

“And unexpected,” Ziva finished.

Buffy was experienced enough after all these years that her face betrayed nothing at Ziva’s confirmation that their father hadn’t known about Dawn. Sure, they’d suspected as much, but knowing for certain was different. On the bright side, Dawn had evidently been happy enough to stay at their father’s house overnight- and he must have been content to let her.

“There’s no way my dad would have left her alone tonight,” she said firmly. “You saw what happened Tuesday night, right?”

Ziva nodded.

“Dawn was lucky to escape with only superficial injuries. There were multiple homicide victims in the building when we arrived. Most of them had been extensively brutalized.”

“Yeah, vampires are charming that way,” Buffy agreed. “But main point, dad saw. The only way he would have left her tonight was if he had half of NCIS guarding her.”

Ziva thought about that for a moment, then admitted that the logic was sound. No matter how frantic he might have been about his older daughter, Gibbs would have been unlikely to trust Dawn’s safety to anyone else. In fact, there were only two people other than herself she could think of he might have called on to do so- one was in Mexico, and he could hardly have confided in the director under the circumstances.

She glanced over at Buffy again to find the blonde regarding her with a knowing look.

“See? I might still be hazy on some things from my past, but I do know the important stuff. Hey, I think I know where we are now. You need to turn here.”

\---

Ziva was a little unsure what to make of her current surroundings. Ducky had made the Council sound forbidding. Secretive. Abusive. But the house Buffy had brought her to, saying she wanted to take a shower so she didn’t go to meet her dad covered in vamp dust, was none of those things. It was warm. Welcoming. A real home.

She looked around the cozy living room, taking in the comfortable furnishings as well as the numerous small, human touches that showed that despite the house being still not entirely unpacked- there were boxes stacked all around- people with personality lived here. It was nothing like what she had expected. 

She did not jump when she registered the other presence in the room- Buffy was not the only person in residence, after all- but she was on guard. Buffy had not expected any of her companions to be back yet. On the plus side, she could be sure it was not a vampire. Buffy had been quite clear that they needed invitations to enter a house. Ziva already planned to be much more careful in her behavior at her own door.

She turned to find Xander Harris behind her, hands half raised to show lack of threat.

“Sorry, I didn’t expect to startle you. Figured since you’re ex-Mossad, not to mention Eli’s kid, you’d have ninja skills that would detect you and the Buffster weren’t the only ones in the house.”

“You have also met my father?” Ziva asked.

Xander snorted.

“Thankfully, no. Buffy and Faith have. They… weren’t very complimentary.”

Ziva could imagine they hadn’t been.

“So, waiting for Buffy to clean up. Can I get you anything? She tends to take her time in the shower.”

“Do you by any chance have hot chocolate?” Ziva asked.

Harris smiled.

“This is a house intended for Slayers. Of course we have hot chocolate. C’mon.”

Ziva followed him into the cheerful kitchen. If anything, it was more comfortable than the living room. Xander read her expression easily as she absorbed the already well-stocked pantry and commercial size fridge whose homey color didn’t disguise that it wasn’t your standard residential appliance.

“This isn’t the first house we’ve set up. Not only do Slayers eat more than your average teen, experience says the girls spend a lot of time in the kitchens if they’re not training, studying, or watching movies. So we feel it’s worth it to go the extra mile and make it a nice place to hang in addition to keeping enough food on hand to feed an army on short notice.”

Ziva nodded. 

“Will Buffy be living here?” she asked, keeping her voice casual.

Xander took a seat at the breakfast bar as he shrugged.

“I don’t know. That wasn’t the plan originally, but I can’t see Buffy not wanting to spend more time in DC now. Problem is, she’s pretty vital to running the Council these days, so it gets… complicated.”

Ziva nodded. She had already gathered that Buffy must be placed fairly high in the organization- why else would the Council have moved so quickly to shut down the investigation? Intervention by the President was not something that happened for foot soldiers. 

“Dawn’s definitely here either way though,” Xander continued. “She was already psyched about this posting as it was, and now that she’s met her dad, I have a feeling all the crowbars in the world couldn’t pry her out of here.”

Ziva was wandering around the kitchen as they talked, looking at the various knick-knacks that had already found homes, as well as the strategically placed items that could be used as weapons. She paused when she reached the refrigerator and read the paper held in place by a singularly ridiculous magnet. 

“Rules?” she asked pointedly.

Xander grinned. It took several years off his face, making him look almost boyish, instead of older than the age she knew him to be.

“Yeah, since Dawn’s going to be based here for the foreseeable future, she brought the original master copy of the Official Scooby Rules.”  
Ziva read avidly. Xander watched her reaction in amusement.

“It will be quite interesting when Gibbs and his daughters compare rules,” she said. “They are mutually exclusive in places. Rule 6, for example. And I believe Gibbs may have uncomfortable questions about 12 and 14.”

“Oh, yeah, maybe we should put that somewhere a little less prominent before Agent Gibbs gets the house tour,” Xander said, flushing. “At least until he’s had some time to process and gets the redacted version of Buffy’s teenage years.”

“Rule 12 dates from her teenage years?” Ziva spluttered.

“Well, the rule is retrospective, but the first violation was when she was sixteen,” Xander admitted. “I will, of course, deny all knowledge if you are foolish enough to relay this conversation to her father.”

Ziva gave him a look that suggested his sanity was in question.

“You think I am about to tell him that his long lost daughter is namechecked in a rule about not having sex with vampires?”

Xander shrugged.

“Hey, you Mossad types clearly have a different definition of normal behavior than the rest of us. Just cause it sounded crazy to me…”

Ziva shook her head.

“Right,” Xander said. “So I’ll hide the rules, you’ll forget to mention it to anyone else, and we’ll both live long, happy lives. Ice cream?”

“What do you have?” Ziva asked.

Xander’s smile turned smug.

“The question to ask in this house is what don’t we have?”

\---

Buffy found it difficult to sit still on the ride from the Council house to her dad’s, mainly because she’d taken too long in the shower. Too much time for the thinky thoughts. But the hot water had felt so nice, and Giles wasn’t the only one discovering that field work sucked more, not less, as time went by. In her case, Slayer healing and resilience took a lot of the edge off, but injuries still hurt no matter what.

When they reached the house, Buffy looked at it and realized her sister and father must be in bed already- it was completely dark.

“Crap. I’m such a smarty pants I didn’t think that people might be sleeping,” she said ruefully. “Guess the happy reunion will have to wait until morning. Do you mind dropping me back at the house?”

“You could still stay here,” Ziva said. “Surprise your father in the morning.”

Buffy frowned.

“Ok, we both know I can get into that house if I really want to, but I don’t think showcasing my breaking and entering skills is a good way to reestablish a relationship with my dad. Especially now that he’s a cop.”

Ziva laughed, and couldn’t stop laughing at the irritation on Buffy’s face because she wasn’t in on the joke.

“Sorry,” she said, settling herself. “But I must tell you the same thing Abby told Dawn earlier. Gibbs never locks his door.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. Ok, that was new. She was pretty sure her mother had been big on making sure the door was safely locked at night. But it did explain Ziva’s unexpected case of the giggles.

“Well in that case…”

She hopped out of the car, reaching into the backseat to grab the bag she’d thrown together after the shower.

“Thanks for the ride, Ziva. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on.”

“I think I would enjoy that,” Ziva replied with a small smile, back to her normal reserve. She waved, and then put the car in gear. 

Buffy walked confidently up the front steps. Somehow, it felt good knowing that she could return home by the front door instead of sneaking in. She was a grown woman, her father already knew about vampires, and she didn’t have to hide anything.

She also didn’t have to be loud. Just because she never got a decent night’s sleep didn’t mean other people shouldn’t. She slipped inside quietly, closing the door silently behind her. She was surprised to find it was pretty much like she remembered it, just slightly dustier and a little more worn. Evidently her dad hadn’t been big on keeping up with trends in interior decorating.

She came to a stop when she saw the photo. Front and center, where you couldn’t help but see them whenever you walked through the door. Faith was right. He hadn’t moved on. There she was, eight years old and cuddled in her mother’s arms, young enough that it had still meant shelter and total safety. 

“Mom, I’m home,” she whispered.

\---

Gibbs wasn’t sure what had woken him up, because it had to be two or three in the morning. The house was completely quiet, but something wasn’t right. He slipped out into the hall. Listening, he heard Dawn’s quiet, steady breathing coming from Kelly’s room. She was still asleep, so whatever he’d heard wasn’t her. He glanced down the stairs to the front door.

He hadn’t locked it. Hadn’t for years. There was no point. The most precious things in his life had already been taken, and there was no getting them back. Now he could kick himself for overlooking what was a normal part of other people’s nightly routine- his house was worth locking again.  
He padded silently down the steps, unsure what he would find, only to come to a shocked halt in the doorway to the living room. 

The moonlight streaming through the front window turned the figure in front of the bookshelves an eerie white. As still as she was standing, he could almost believe she was a ghost- except that this was a grownup ghost, not the little girl he’d missed for twenty years.

He started to take a step towards her, but as quietly as he moved, she still turned at the sound. She was holding the photo of her and her mother that he kept on the shelf, and looked like she was about to cry. There was a bag on the floor by her feet- she must have dropped it when she reached for the photo.

“Kelly,” he whispered. His mouth had gone completely dry. He’d hoped to see her, but now that she was here, he had no idea what to do.

“Hi, Daddy,” she replied.

For all she called him Daddy, he had the impression that she was about two inches from bolting. 

“What are you doing, baby?” he asked.

“I came to check on Dawn,” she said, sounding nervous. 

He would have been hurt, except that he remembered this. God, he remembered this. When she was nervous or upset, Kelly would talk about anything but whatever was bothering her. You had to wait it out until she was ready to open up. Shannon had claimed more than once, usually in total exasperation, that she got it from him.

“She’s asleep upstairs,” Gibbs said hoarsely. “I put her in your room. Didn’t think you’d mind.”

She shook her head, with a small smile.

“She’s ok?”

“Sleeping like a baby,” he replied. “Kelly-”

“Daddy, I’m sorry,” she said, and her face crumpled.

Even though they were on opposite sides of the room, he had his arms around her in no time flat. He didn’t even consciously register crossing the room. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he told her, hugging her tightly. “None of this is your fault.”

“It is,” she insisted. “It’s all because-“

“Because some stupid old men decided that the only way they could get little girls to fight vampires was to take them away from their families,” he cut her off. “I know, baby. That’s not your fault either.”

“You aren’t angry at me?” she asked shakily. “They killed Mommy to get to me.”

“They only got away with that because your mother didn’t know they were coming,” Gibbs said firmly. There was no doubt in his mind Shannon would have ripped a man limb from limb before she’d let anyone take her daughter away. Never underestimate a mama bear when her cub’s in danger.

He sat them down on the couch. He wanted her to understand once and for all that this was not on her. From the sound of it, his girls had enough to carry without her carrying the weight of what the Council had done to them on top of it.

“It is not your fault. This Council did this, not you. I may not understand why you’re still working with them, but I’m happy you came home.”

She gave him a shaky smile, which even though it was unsure was still close enough to his mother’s to break his heart all over again that he’d been missing it for so many years.

“Were you staying the night, or did you have other plans?” he asked cautiously, glancing at the bag still sitting forlornly on the floor. He hoped the answer would be ‘stay’. His baby girl was finally home, back where she belonged. He wasn’t sure he could let her walk back out the door. Not tonight. 

She shrugged.

“I wasn’t entirely sure. I mean, I was hoping I could stay. I needed to check on Dawn. And I wanted to see you, to explain…”

She trailed off, waving her hand vaguely, as if there were any reasonable way to explain the crazy situation they found themselves in.

“So this has nothing at all to do with a certain pig,” he said slyly, and almost laughed at the utter outrage on his daughter’s face. Some things hadn’t changed, no matter what his princess called herself these days.

“Dad-dy! No, it’s not about Mr. Gordo!”

She paused as he raised an eyebrow.

“Not just about Mr. Gordo,” she sulkily amended.

“Good to know you’re still honest,” he said, grinning. Seeing her open her mouth to protest, he shook his head. “Whatever it is, princess, it can wait until morning. I gave Dawn your bed, but you can have mine.”

She shook her head.

“No, you go back to bed. You need the rest. I heard about your afternoon from Faith and Willow, and that was before I put you on Dawn Patrol. The couch is fine. It’s more comfortable than a lot of places I’ve slept.”

Gibbs tried not to dwell on that. He would never have wanted his baby to join the Corps, and here she was, fighting something a lot worse than anything jarheads ever dealt with.

“If that’s what you want to do,” he said lightly. 

Before he left the room, he noticed his daughter was looking at the piece of furniture she was sitting on. Yep, there it was. Her nose wrinkled up just as he’d imagined it would. He just might have to pinch himself a couple times when he got upstairs to be sure this was real.

“Is this the same couch?” she demanded. “Furniture shopping, dad. Tomorrow! Take the day off!”

“I’ll go get you a pillow and a blanket,” Gibbs said, trying not to laugh. 

“That would be nice.” She paused, and then said in a rush, “You’re not mad about the name, are you? Cause I’m kind of used to being Buffy now.”

Gibbs sighed. Deep down, he was a little irritated by it, but at the same time…

“I don’t know why you girls are so hung up on that. You’re back from the dead, and you think I’m going to make a fuss because you got used to a different name?”

The smile that she rewarded him with was full blown, lighting up her entire face. As he headed up the stairs to grab bedding for her, Gibbs marveled at what a difference a day made. This morning, he hadn’t known if he’d ever get a chance to talk to either of his daughters. Tonight, they were both sleeping under his roof. There were still a few things he wanted to get to the bottom of, but he had a feeling he was going to sleep better tonight than he had in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops! I forgot I hadn't posted the new chapter here when I updated over at TtH. Apologies to all who were waiting patiently here!


	22. The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life

Gibbs watched his girls. They amazed him. Buffy was patiently teaching her sister how to stack her blocks, while Dawn was far more intent on knocking them over any time her older sister got a decent tower started.

“Catching up on all you missed?”

He grinned, knowing what he would see before he even looked up.

Shannon.

Alive, unharmed. Like she would have looked around the time Buffy and Dawn would have been this age- if any of this had been real.

“Can’t blame a guy for wondering,” he replied, pulling Shannon onto the couch with him. She shook her head, but she had a fond smile on her face as she did.

“It should have been like this,” she said sadly.

“You know about Dawn?” he asked, surprised. Then again, he shouldn’t be. It was his dream.  
Shannon’s expression turned serious.

“You can’t lie to the dead, Gibbs. They could only change the memories of the living.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Gibbs asked, trying to keep the suspicion out of his tone.

“The men who gave us Dawn,” Shannon replied.

He was startled to notice that her ‘duh’ tone was exactly the same as Dawn’s.

“She’s your daughter,” he told her.

“I know,” Shannon said softly, watching the baby giggle as Buffy finally lost patience and wrecked the latest tower before Dawn could. She added a bit wistfully, “I would have loved to meet her.”

“How did they ‘give’ us Dawn?” he asked quietly.

“You’re not going to like the answer to that one,” Shannon said somberly. “Which means I’m not the person to explain it.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

Shannon snorted.

“Gibbs, if I tell you, you won’t believe me. You’d brush it off- this is just a dream, after all.”

Gibbs raised a startled eyebrow at his wife’s matter of fact- and completely accurate- assessment of their current situation.

“Buffy will tell you everything, you just have to give her time. She’s like you- she doesn’t trust easily. ”

“If she doesn’t trust easily, what makes you think she’ll tell me something I’m not going to want to believe?”

“Because she remembers now. You’re her daddy. It won’t take her long to realize nothing changed that. And I made her promise.”

Gibbs hugged his wife tightly. If this was a dream, he was going to hold on as long as he could.

\---

“Hush little baby, don’t say a word…”

Buffy frowned. She knew this song. And not just because it was a classic lullaby. She remembered. It was one of the last songs she’d learned for the piano. She’d made a tape for her dad and sent it to him. It was her younger self she heard singing.

“Papa’s going to buy me a mocking bird,” she murmured, wondering if she’d remember how to play the piano again now.

Her mother appeared from the kitchen, hands on her hips. Her real mother, not Joyce.

“And if that mockingbird won’t sing-“ she said sternly.

“Abba’s going to buy you a diamond ring,” Ziva David announced from the doorway. “That is how the line goes, is it not, achot g’dolah?”

Buffy frowned. Much as she’d liked her, Ziva seemed out of place. Also, too young. She looked like a teen, not an adult.

“If that diamond ring turns brass-“

“Daddy’s going to buy me a looking glass,” Drusilla grinned, showing her fangs.

“If that looking glass gets broke-“ the Guardian warned, watching a group of shadow men.

“No one is buying anyone a goat!” Buffy snapped.

“Not even for two zuzim?” Ziva asked, her expression darkening.

“No! No goats! Enough with the cryptic, I want answers!”

Buffy glared at the room in general.

The Guardian turned to walk away, but Buffy and her mother both moved to block her, while Ziva stationed herself at front door, glowering. Anyplace else, the Guardian might have been able to evade them. But this was their home, and the rules were different here. Even Drusilla was helping to corner her.

“Answers,” Shannon repeated, her voice hard in a way Buffy didn’t think she’d ever heard before.

Somehow she wasn’t surprised. There was very little she and Dawn wouldn’t do for family. She knew her dad was the same. It made sense her mother would be, too.

“Even the best plans may fail,” the Guardian said sadly. “We do not all receive warning of what’s to come. And sometimes we do not fully understand the price.”

“The price?” Shannon repeated.

Buffy realized her mother didn’t understand, and while she wasn’t sure she understood completely, she had a feeling Willow would. If only Tara or Anya were here to explain.

“Magic always has a price, Mom,” she murmured. “It doesn’t always work out like you expect. If you’re not careful, it bites you in the… butt.”

“Things go wrong,” Drusilla confirmed, dancing around the room with her favorite doll. “But we must do our best, mustn’t we, Miss Edith?”

“She always does,” Cassie said firmly, coming downstairs to take Shannon’s hand and Buffy’s, leading them to the couch. “And her best is really good, even when she can’t help.”

Turning to Buffy, she added, “You have all the pieces of the puzzle. You’re right about Ziva- if you tell her, she’ll help you figure it out.”

Buffy frowned, glancing at Ziva, who was now looking around the room curiously. She was definitely not the Ziva she’d met last night. The eyes were different. Young Ziva? The ghost of Ziva past?

Her mother looked around at the others in the room, her glance lingering on Ziva’s doppelganger and Drusilla before returning to Buffy.

“You are going to explain to your father, right, Kelly?”

“Don’t worry, Mom. Everything’s going to be fine,” Buffy said. “I’m home. We’re safe. I’ll tell him everything.”

“Hush little baby, don’t you cry-“ her younger self chirped from another room.

“Your Daddy loves you and so do I,” Shannon whispered, tears in her eyes.

Buffy woke then, muffled footsteps pulling her out of her dream.

Blinking, she remembered where she was. She was home. And the quiet footsteps belonged to her dad, who was looking at her from the middle of the room like she was the most wonderful thing in the world. She smiled, and closed her eyes again, reassured that it was ok to sleep.

She knew if her dad was watching over her, she was safe.

\---

Gibbs woke early, just as he would if he were going to work. The slight snores coming from Kelly’s room told him Dawn was still asleep. He took the stairs as quietly as he’d moved in his sniper days, not wanting to wake Kelly- no, Buffy, he reminded himself. He’d get used to the name, no matter how ridiculous. His baby could call herself Moonbeam if she wanted to, so long as she was alive and home.

She was still fast asleep on the couch, and he felt like he should pinch himself to make sure this was real. His daughters at home where they belonged.

Buffy did crack one eye open, but when she saw it was only him, she smiled drowsily and pulled the blanket further up to partly cover her head. He could just see a stuffed pig peeking out under her chin, evidence that she’d slipped into her room at some point before going to sleep. He restrained himself from ruffling her hair, fairly sure if he did it would wake her again.

He started the coffeemaker, sure that Dawn would want real coffee whenever she woke up, and grabbed his phone. He stepped out the back door, wanting to keep it quiet inside. Dawn had been on an emotional rollercoaster the past few days, and he hadn’t missed that Buffy had been moving carefully last night. Both girls could use the sleep.

He punched the numbers, wondering how his request would be received.

“Director? I need to take a personal day. We don’t have anything major since the Quantico investigation was closed. DiNozzo can handle anything that comes up.”

He could hear Vance’s concern as he asked if everything was ok.

“Everything’s fine, Leon. Just spending some time with my family. I’ll fill you in on Monday.”

That had gotten Vance’s attention, but he had the decency to simply wish him a good weekend and end the call.

He started to go back inside, before he realized there was another call he should make. Two, actually. _Wow. Grandparents._

He paused, though. If he called now, if his father and Joanne showed up, they would be as floored by Kelly’s return as he was. And they’d probably have the same nagging question that was still bothering him.

Dawn.

He did not doubt for so much as a split second that she was his daughter- and Shannon’s. Even if he had managed to find a concrete reason to dispute Abby’s analysis, there were just too many things that were right about her. But without some explanation…

He sat down, trying to work through the timing. Dawn’s date of birth was late 1986. He’d deployed at the beginning of the year. The Med, Libya. Shannon had left Kelly with her parents for the weekend and come to see him off. If Dawn had been born in the normal fashion, that’s probably when she would have been conceived.

But if she’d been born in the normal way, he’d remember it. Shannon wouldn’t have been happy at going through a pregnancy with him deployed overseas. And there would be documentation to show that he had two minor dependents, not one. He wasn’t fond of looking through his own file, but he knew without checking that there was no record of his second daughter.

Even without his odd dream, his gut said that his girls knew Dawn’s origins. He wanted them to trust him enough to share that before he threw his father and Shannon’s mother into the mix.  
Especially if they, like him, had no memories of his younger daughter. He had no idea how to even begin to explain it to them. And given Dawn’s volatile reaction to him, he was unwilling to expose her to grandparents who wouldn’t know her. Worst case scenario, Joanne might reject her. He had a feeling if that happened, Dawn would be devastated.

By the time Gibbs came back inside, the coffee was ready, so he poured himself a cup and sat down at the kitchen table to read the morning paper. As he’d halfway expected, he didn’t see Dawn until close to nine.

He heard her padding down the stairs, and was amused to see that she was wearing slippers that could only have come with her sister last night- one a fluffy bunny, the other a ridiculously cheerful frog.

“Nice footwear,” he said, moving to the cabinet to grab Dawn a mug. “Why the frog?”

Dawn grinned.

“Inside joke,” she said. “Anya was scared of bunnies, and Willow has frog fear.”

“Frog fear?” Gibbs said skeptically, handing her the now full mug.

“Good coffee,” Dawn said appreciatively after the first sip. She practically inhaled half the mug before she returned to his question.

“Willow’s afraid of frogs. Objectively, it’s silly for her to be scared of frogs, because unless you’re talking about those South American frogs some tribes use to make blowdart poison, who ever heard of frogs hurting anyone? It would make way more sense to be afraid of snakes. But phobias are not logical.”

“Mmm,” Gibbs agreed, sipping his own coffee. “Why snakes?”

Dawn shuddered.

“Have you read about some of the poisonous snakes they have in Africa and Australia? Africa’s not so bad, because you can avoid the parts with the snakes, or take precautions if you have to travel to those regions, but Australia? Even aside from supernatural stuff, that continent is nuts. I stopped wanting to go there once I found out how many different kinds of animals they have that can kill you. Spiders, snakes, crocodiles, snakes, crazy birds, more snakes…”

“There’s a pattern there,” Gibbs observed.

Dawn nodded.

“Australia is the only continent that has more venomous snakes than non-venomous species. Oh, and all that was just the things on land that can kill you. It gets worse if you go in the water. Then there’s snakes and crocodiles and sharks and octopuses and jellyfish. Oh, and snails. Poisonous snails!”

Gibbs was trying really hard not to laugh at this point, because he couldn’t tell from Dawn’s delivery how serious she was about this.

“Is this a major thing, or a you could be talked into it thing?” he asked curiously.

“This is a standing ‘do not send me there unless it’s an apocalypse’ thing,” Dawn replied. “I’ve had enough things try to kill me without the entire animal kingdom getting in on the act.”

A chuckle from the direction of the couch caught both their attention.

Buffy was grinning at them from her blanket cave.

“You got her started on Australia,” she snickered. “Don’t worry, you’ll learn.”

“How’d it go in Quantico?” Dawn asked her sister.

Buffy stood up. She stretched, revealing a welter of healing bruises as she did. Gibbs bit his tongue, but the wry smile his daughter gave him said she hadn’t missed the reaction.

“Not too bad. More of them than we’d expected, but you know how Riley and Graham are.”

Dawn snorted.

“Their contingency plans have contingency plans,” she said. “Bet it drove them nuts to only have a few hours for recon and planning.”

To Gibbs’ surprise, she sounded rather dismissive of the planning.

“You girls don’t normally plan?” he asked mildly.

Buffy shrugged.

“We plan. Just not the same way they do. It works for us.” She paused for a second, a darker expression flitting across her face as something crossed her mind. “Well, mostly.”

Dawn, who hadn’t been looking at her sister, chuckled.

“Some of our plans get called nasty names when the boys hear about them.”

Buffy sighed.

“Some of my plans, you’re allowed to be honest, Dawn. They can’t call your plans nasty names, at least Graham can’t, and Riley doesn’t want to mess things up for him.”

Dawn rolled her eyes.

“You say that because you didn’t get to hear Graham’s thoughts on Madagascar. Believe me, when it comes to the planning, the man does not hold back, even if it puts him in danger of n…”

Dawn abruptly altered course.

“Noogies! Because I totally would have given him noogies if he’d gone on about it much longer. Wow. You know, I suddenly have insight into Anya. Except for the part where I don’t think she was ever embarrassed.”

“Who’s Anya?” Gibbs asked, curious. This was the second time Dawn had mentioned her.

“A friend of ours,” Dawn said, slightly subdued.

“She had no filter at all,” Buffy explained. “She would do things like ask me if my college boyfriend was giving me adequate orgasms.”

Gibbs tried not to wince.

“It sounds like a legitimate girl talk question,” he said, trying not let his discomfort with the idea of ‘Kelly’ and ‘sex’ in the same sentence show. He was still adjusting to the idea of her being alive, let alone an adult.

Dawn snickered.

“Yeah, it might have been, except Anya asked it exactly like that. In front of me. And that wasn’t nearly as bad as the conversation she had with Xander and Giles right before that time the whole town lost their voices.”

Buffy looked both intrigued and wary.

“I don’t think I’ve heard this one before,” she told Gibbs. “Go on.”

“Xander and Anya hadn’t been together very long, and they were having a not-quite-fight. Anyway, Giles was babysitting me and he’d asked Xander to stop by to take Spike because Olivia was coming to town…”

Buffy groaned.

“She told you that Olivia was Giles’ orgasm friend, didn’t she?”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

“Actually, she announced that to the whole room, but more to the point, she complained that all Xander was interested in was lots of orgasms.”

Buffy pinched the bridge of her nose.

“And that, Dad, is classic Anya,” she said, shaking her head. To Dawn, she added, “Did Giles not think to send you out of the room?”

Dawn snickered.

“He was that combination of surprised and horrified that only Anya ever really managed. He’d probably have cleaned his glasses, except he wasn’t wearing them. I think the words, ‘yes, that is exactly the most appalling thing you could have said’ were uttered. If it helps, Spike did cover my ears. Not very well, but enough of an effort that you wouldn’t stake him if you walked in and heard the conversation.”

“How old were you when this happened?” Gibbs asked, pretty sure he knew how Giles had felt.

“I’d just turned thirteen,” Dawn said with a wry smile. “So probably too young to have been hearing such things. When Buffy says ‘no filter’, she means _no_ filter. Although looking back, I think it was less no filter than no sense of when it was appropriate to talk about that stuff and how to phrase it. She didn’t really do ‘tact’ or ‘euphemism’ either. On the bright side, I got the most thorough and honest safe sex talk ever.”

Gibbs shook his head, deciding it wasn’t worth asking what had happened. Not yet. The way Dawn spoke about her, it was clear she was no longer alive. To his surprise, Buffy volunteered it.

“Anya didn’t make it out of Sunnydale. She was killed in the collapse.”

“They never recovered her body,” Dawn added, subdued again.

“I’m sorry,” Gibbs said, meaning it. As odd as the girl sounded, she was clearly part of the constellation of family his daughters had chosen for themselves. He searched for something else to lighten the mood.

“You girls want to grab some breakfast?”

Both girls’ eyes lit up at that suggestion, and he hoped it was more for him than the food.

“Are you sure?” Dawn asked. “You’ve got to be late for work already, I mean Agent McGee called at oh dark hundred the other morning…”

He could hear the reluctance- if he had to guess, he’d say she was doing her best to be a grownup about it, even though her inner child was screaming ‘I wanna!’ at the top of its lungs.

“I took the day off. Figured we could have breakfast, and your sister said something about a new couch...“

“Definitely,” Buffy said firmly. “I can’t believe you still have the same one. Do you ever actually sit on that thing? It’s so dead it should be given a decent burial.”

“So we’ll go shopping after breakfast,” Gibbs said lightly. He was a little unnerved at the look in his older daughter’s eyes at the word ‘shopping’.

Dawn raised an eyebrow.

“Wow. You just offered to take Buffy shopping. Like, voluntarily. I guess we can stop wondering where I get that crazy lack of fear from.”

Gibbs looked at her in confusion.

“You just finished telling me there’s an entire continent you won’t visit because of its deadly fauna. That isn’t fear?”

Buffy pinned him with a stern look.

“Don’t discourage her. It took a long time and a good many near misses for her to develop somewhat normal self-preservation instincts. Has she told you about the time she invited a vampire into the house?”

\---

Ziva was unsurprised when Gibbs did not show up for work. She smiled to herself and got on with her work. She was also unsurprised when Tim looked up from his phone call with an expression of complete consternation on his face.

He hung up the phone with an irritated click.

“It’s a good thing we’re not officially working on the Quantico case anymore. That warehouse was completely leveled overnight.”

“What?” DiNozzo demanded. “How?”

“I’m not sure. The MP who called wanted to know if we’d seen any sign of explosives when we were there.”

“It exploded?”

“No, more like imploded- he says it almost looks like a controlled demolition, except that they hadn’t scheduled one.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Tony protested. “How could anyone demolish a building in the middle of a Marine base without being noticed?”

“The area was restricted last night,” McGee replied. “A group about to deploy was running an exercise. They reported their exercise complete and the area clear at 0300. The warehouse was definitely still up. MPs came through half an hour later and it wasn’t.”

“That is strange,” Ziva said, deciding it was time for her to join the conversation. “But as you say, it is no longer our case. We have been ordered to stay away from it. I do not think you should waste any time on it, McGee.”

She rose to go down to the lab, aware that Abby would be bouncing off the walls waiting to hear from Gibbs. As she left, she heard McGee ask Tony, ‘does she know something we don’t?’

She found Abby in her lab, staring intently at the computer screen even as she danced in place to her music.

“Ziva! Did Gibbs come in yet?”

Ziva shook her head.

“I do not expect him in today,” she said simply.

Abby’s eyes widened, then narrowed as she eyed Ziva sharply.

“You know something!”

“I drove Buffy to Gibbs’ house last night,” Ziva confessed.

As she’d expected, Abby’s face lit up at the idea of both Gibbs’ daughters coming home.

“This is so amazing. It’s a miracle. I mean, what are the odds that we would find Gibbs’ daughter while investigating a crime scene?”

“But?” Ziva asked, aware that there was still something bothering the bubbly lab tech.

“But I can’t figure out how Dawn fits in!” Abby exclaimed, gesturing at the screen in irritation. “She is his daughter. She is 100% his and Shannon’s. I’d stake my life on it. DNA doesn’t lie.”

“I thought DNA tests could be doped,” Ziva said, not believing that to be the case, but willing to play devil’s advocate for Abby. While it could be a very elaborate deception, she doubted any agency on Earth would come up with such an outlandish plan. What possible benefit could be derived from convincing Gibbs he had a plainly impossible second daughter?

“They can. But you have to be careful, and a rigorous analysis is likely to turn up telltales that warn you that something hinky’s going on. I have a sample that is straight from Dawn, one that she wasn’t expecting to give. I have a sample directly from Gibbs. The only person I don’t have a direct sample from is Kelly, at least not Kelly now instead of Kelly then, but even so. There is nothing hinky about these samples. They’re clean.”

“Yet Gibbs does not remember having a second daughter. Nor is there any paperwork to show that he and his wife ever had a second child,” Ziva mused. “Have you spoken to Ducky? Perhaps he has some ideas.”

“Ducky knows Gibbs better than anyone,” Abby mused.

“Not only that, I believe Ducky has had prior dealings with the Council,” Ziva said.

“He has? When? How do we know?”

“I do not know when, but he told Willow Rosenberg so yesterday when she, Harris, and Giles came to meet the director,” Ziva said.

Abby looked at her and nodded.

“Ducky.”


	23. Learning Curve

There was a part of Gibbs that still couldn’t quite believe he was sitting in his favorite diner with his daughters. Having breakfast. As a family.

Buffy, who seemed to have taken after Shannon and Joanne in the fashion department, leaned against the back of the booth on the other side of the table. Where most women dressed as stylishly as she did would look all kinds of out of place in a greasy spoon like this, she was completely at her ease. 

Dawn, who had elected to sit next to him, was a jeans and t-shirt girl at heart- he could picture himself teaching a littler version of her how to sand, how to work with wood. Just like he had with Kelly. While he held his own in the conversation, he was content for a while to just let the girls go back and forth, observing them. He’d seen them separately yesterday, but this was his first real chance to see them interact.

What he saw was what they told him- they were sisters. Sisters who might bicker and fight, but would be back to back in a heartbeat if someone targeted either one. His gut, which was still what he relied on, despite all Abby and Ducky’s technology, amazingly was quiet on that score. Intellectually, he knew it made no sense that they could be sisters, that Dawn could be his. But everything about it felt so right.

The thing that bothered him were the little tells – the long pause here, the almost imperceptible change of subject there- that said they were still keeping things from him. Important things. Painful things. On one level, he could convince himself that it was too soon for them to drop their guard entirely. They were his daughters, after all. On another level – they were his daughters. Their hurts were his. And he wanted to find who took them away from him and make sure they could never do that to another family. Ever. 

To Gibbs’ relief- he’d gotten a bad feeling after Dawn’s comment about taking her sister shopping voluntarily- the threatened shopping trip was postponed. 

Dawn intervened while they were still eating, casually asking him and Buffy about their preferences for couch color and style.

“We’re going furniture shopping after breakfast,” Buffy protested, midway through the diner’s Hungry Man special- a full stack of pancakes, bacon, sausage, two eggs, home fries, and toast- which she had topped generously with orange marmalade.   
Dawn rolled her eyes.

“Far be it from me to prevent you from giving Dad shellshock with your shop ‘til you drop stamina the first day you’re back from the dead,” she said reasonably, “but it does seem like a waste of time when I can just call Cat and have her arrange delivery from the Council’s approved vendors list.”

“You have a list of approved vendors for furniture?” Gibbs asked, deliberately keeping his tone neutral. That sounded more like something a supply officer would have, not someone associated with the Council. Not if what Ducky had told him was correct.

Dawn nodded, cutting her Belgian waffle into precise pieces- or as precise as she could manage with the small mountain of strawberries and bananas that topped it.

“Council employees tend to have… demanding requirements for furniture,” she said. “Anyone who thinks they’ll just hit Ikea to replace busted furniture eventually realizes that it ends up costing more to keep replacing cheap stuff, cause it breaks more often. It’s simpler for us to keep a list of furniture manufacturers and sellers who can supply products that stand up to what we consider normal wear and tear. It saves everyone time, and the Council’s housing budget.”

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“We don’t destroy that much furniture,” she began, only to trail off at her sister’s raised eyebrow. “Ok, maybe we used to, but-“

She stopped altogether at her sister’s expression, which was just inviting her to keep digging.

“But we’ve both been living in Council properties for the entirety of our adult lives, which means better security in addition to furnishing and replacing the furnishings being someone else’s worry,” Dawn finished wryly. “You haven’t actually gone furniture shopping since Sunnydale. Xander or Willow bring you the latest catalog, you point at something, and it shows up. And if I recall, after Mom passed and you were suddenly the responsible adult, you had sticker shock over the price of keeping the house livable.”

Buffy frowned, but grudgingly admitted her sister had a point. Now Gibbs was insanely curious, but Dawn didn’t leave him an opening as she pressed her advantage.

“I’m guessing Dad doesn’t much care about style and color, right?” At his shrug, she nodded. “So, Buffy, unless you’ve got some other idea, I figured a couch like the one in your flat, just in a more dad-like color, and maybe a couple of those chairs of Xander’s that you always commandeer when we hang out at his.”

“As long as we’re talking furniture,” Gibbs broke in, “what about a bed so your sister doesn’t have to sleep on the couch?”

If he had two daughters, there should be two bedrooms. He wanted them to feel like they could stop by whenever- and stay whenever. Maybe he was setting himself up for disappointment, but he could hope.

Dawn nodded.

“Sure, that’s reasonable. If anyone quibbles over it with a Council house in town, we can point out that Buffy hasn’t even touched her housing allowance the last five quarters. Oh, and the couch you’re getting has a pull-out sleeper, cause even though she’s not technically yours, chances are Faith will wind up crashing with you from time to time.”

Gibbs accepted this with a nod, having already realized that trying to detach his daughters from their adopted family would get him nowhere good. 

“Where will we put a bed?” Buffy protested. 

“I don’t ever use the spare room for anything except storage,” Gibbs shrugged. 

“Same bedroom set as your flat, or did you prefer the set you had in Medan a couple years back?” Dawn asked, tapping away on her phone, apparently unconcerned by details of where the bedroom set would go. Or maybe she just trusted that he wouldn’t have suggested it if he didn’t have space for it.

“The Medan set was nice,” Buffy agreed. 

Dawn nodded, and finished up whatever it was she was doing on the phone with a look of satisfaction. 

“How is it you know all about this?” Gibbs asked.

Dawn smirked.

“I spent a couple years helping open new Council facilities all over the world and renovate old ones that were still salvageable. I probably know the logistics setup better than anyone except Cat and Aidan, and they’re full-time admin staff, as close to civilian as we have.”

Buffy sighed.

“We can go into detail later, at home, about why Dawn’s much too valuable to not be up to her eyeballs in Council business, but we’ve been pushing to delay putting younger personnel in the field. So she’s been working at HQ at least part-time ever since she finished high school.”

While he looked forward to the complete explanation, Gibbs found himself nodding approvingly.

“Rule 5- you don’t waste good,” he said.

Buffy’s shock was visible. Dawn grinned.

“Dad has rules, too. Which means at some point we are going to have a massive rule revision. He’s got some good ones, but our rule one totally trumps his.”

Buffy raised a challenging eyebrow.

“I would hope so, it’s hard to beat ‘don’t die.’ But we can talk about that later, too. First things first: I was promised a shopping trip!”

Dawn looked at her sister with undisguised horror.

“You are _not_ scaring the pants off Dad today,” she said flatly. “Give him a few days to adjust to the whole ‘you’re not dead’ idea. Channel your retail therapy urges into something more practical. We need to do a grocery run, and they can’t possibly have the furniture ready for delivery before afternoon, no matter what kind of rush Cat puts on the requisition.”

“Picking up groceries is not the same,” Buffy protested.

Gibbs decided that in this case, letting Dawn run interference was the better part of valor.

“Think of it as easing Dad into the wonderful world of endurance shopping,” Dawn suggested, in a tone that said it was as good an offer as her sister was going to get today.

“Shopping is an endurance sport?” Gibbs asked.

“With Buffy it is,” Dawn muttered.

“Even grocery shopping?”

“No, grocery shopping’s pretty efficient, actually,” Dawn said. “It’s just probably more of it than you’re used to.”

Gibbs regarded Buffy’s now completely empty plate, and mentally added in the waffle and scrapple Dawn had demolished. Dawn wasn’t quite as bad, but Buffy ate like a teenage boy at his worst. Yeah, he could see how that would add up to more groceries than he usually needed.

“Grocery shopping it is.”

\---

Ducky stood up from his paperwork with some surprise.

“Abigail! Ziva! Is there a new case of which I was unaware?” he asked. 

“No case, Ducky,” Ziva replied. “Unless you still consider the Summers sisters a case?”

“If you’re speaking psychologically, perhaps,” Ducky mused. “Although without their files, I don’t know how much help I can be. I haven’t interacted with Buffy Summers at all, and I’ve seen Dawn only briefly.”

Actually, now that he considered it, a psychological profile of the girls might be useful. Jethro would likely have a difficult time letting go of his idea of Kelly as the girl she had been. He could only hope the woman she had become would not be too like her father- taciturn, reluctant to talk about the past, and short on words when it came to her own feelings. Much would depend on her upbringing, but he was not optimistic on that score.

“If you wish, you could watch the recordings of Dawn’s interviews,” Ziva mused, waiting as Abby bounced over to shut off the camera and make sure nothing was set to record. “That might be of some interest, given what we now know about her. But that is not why we have come.”

Ducky looked intrigued.

“The Summers sisters work for Guardian International, which is the public name for what you called the Watchers’ Council,” Ziva said bluntly. 

“I suspected as much,” Ducky said, sitting back down with a sigh. “I warned Jethro about them. The Council are very territorial where their chosen girls are concerned. Small wonder we met only intermediaries yesterday.”

Ziva’s smirk said she knew something he did not.

“Ducky, Gibbs found Dawn,” Abby told him, her smile getting wider when she caught his reaction. “Last night! They went to have dinner. Together!” 

“And I drove Buffy to Gibbs’ house after she finished her mission in Quantico,” Ziva continued. “The Council do not seem to be quite the obstacle you anticipated.”

“Hm. Miss Rosenberg did say they had recently been reorganized,” Ducky mused. “Perhaps that reorganization was a bit more thorough than I had any reason to imagine. Allowing girls to resume contact with their families is not like them at all.”

“I do not think the Council would be in any position to stop them,” Ziva snorted. “I would enjoy watching it if they did.”

Ducky raised an eyebrow at the tone of satisfaction in her voice, but did not enquire.

“Very unexpected. So why come to me about Gibbs’ daughters?”

“Our problem,” Ziva explained, “is how to account for Dawn Summers.”

“She is not a younger girl paired with Kelly?” Ducky asked, startled. “That was my assumption.”

“You know what they say about assuming, Dr. Mallard,” Abby chided. “My DNA analysis says Dawn and Buffy are full siblings. They have two parents in common, and those parents are Leroy Jethro and Shannon Fielding Gibbs.”

“But that’s not possible,” Ducky protested. “He and Shannon had only one daughter.”

Though as he said it, it occurred to Ducky that he had once said much the same thing about Gibbs having any children, let alone multiple. He consoled himself with the thought that he had seen Gibbs’ file since then. It was definite about only one child, Kelly Ann Gibbs, deceased. 

“Exactly,” Abby said. “So how could they have a second child- one that Gibbs doesn’t know about?”

Ducky frowned. If Dawn were significantly younger, or even several years older, it would be an easier problem to solve. But given her age, it was a puzzle, and small wonder that Abigail was so frustrated by it.

“I suppose an organization willing to go to any lengths to obtain control of young girls wouldn’t cavil at experimenting with genetic engineering,” he said slowly. “Cloning would not have been possible at the time Dawn was born-“

“But creating embryos for implantation if you had genetic material from both parents might have been if you threw enough money at the problem,” Abby finished, understanding where he was going. “Would this Council have done something that drastic?”

“Abby,” Ziva said with some asperity. “We are speaking of an organization that from all evidence was willing to kill multiple people, including a federal agent, to gain control of Kelly. If a body count was no obstacle for them, do you believe they would not be willing to go to extremes in an attempt to produce their own Gibbs daughter?”

“But why?” Abby demanded. “What is it about Kelly that made her valuable enough that they would go to any lengths to get her? Or to try to make their own little Gibbs?”

Ducky frowned. If Gibbs had not seen fit to share the truth about the Council with Abigail, he was not certain he should- at least, not yet.

“I’ll pull Shannon’s medical records,” he said. “Gibbs’ genetic material would not have been difficult. Marines are subject to regular physicals. Given what else we know they did, I suspect it would be simple enough for them to place an agent in a position to obtain what they needed. But inserting genetic material into a donor egg wasn’t successfully demonstrated until well after Dawn Summers’ birth. They would have had to somehow obtain an egg directly from Shannon- no trivial matter, especially if they did not wish her to realize what they were doing. And given Dawn’s age, they would have needed to do so some years before her death.”

Abby’s eyes widened as she considered this.

“Is this Council creeping anyone else out?” she asked, trying not to shiver.

“Sadly, Abigail, I have reason to believe this would be far from the worst thing they have ever done,” Ducky told her.

\---

After the shopping trip, Gibbs was surprised to find that his girls were just as efficient at unloading the car as they were at grocery shopping. He would never have believed they could unload the whole car in one trip, even with all three of them.

Dawn smirked at the gobsmacked expression on his face.

“You’re not allowing for Slayer strength,” she told him. “Buffy can carry more than you think.”

When they reached the kitchen, Buffy stopped short.

“I don’t know where anything goes,” she said, sounding irritated. “I mean, I know where things used to go…”

“Dad can tell us or we can figure it out,” Dawn said blithely. “And a lot of that stuff goes in the fridge anyway. Given how empty it was last night, you can arrange it however you want.”

Gibbs got as far as showing them which cabinet he stored cereal in before the doorbell rang. Since both girls were fully occupied trying to put the food away, he headed for the door- with a yell of ‘don’t invite anyone in!’ following him.

He opened the door to find Xander Harris on his front porch.

“Agent Gibbs,” he said cheerfully. “Or do I call you Mr. Gibbs now? Hey, Buff, what do I call your dad?”

Buffy darted out of the kitchen.

“Xander! You didn’t text. We’re still putting the groceries away!” 

He heard Dawn’s snickering as he stood aside to let Harris in.

“Gibbs will be fine, Mr. Harris.”

Buffy and Dawn both grimaced. He looked from his girls to Harris, who had a pained look on his face.

“Sorry, Xander, we’ve been out shopping since breakfast, and it didn’t come up,” Dawn told him apologetically

“Mr. Harris was my father,” Xander explained in a tone that was so studiedly neutral that Gibbs knew there was a lot going on behind it. “It wasn’t a very pleasant relationship, so I’d really prefer you not call me that when we’re not in a professional context.”

“Harris ok?” he asked mildly.

“Harris works, or Xander, which is what pretty much everyone I’m on good terms with calls me. And I really hope we’re going to be on good terms.”

“You’re going to be on good terms,” Buffy announced firmly, pinning her father with a stern look that Dawn matched. “You’re our dad and he’s our Xander.”

“Which I should clarify does not imply any sort of romantic relationship,” Xander added hurriedly. “Dawn has a boyfriend who is not me, and Buffy’s single. Wait, that sounded judgey, didn’t it? There is no judging going on. And it’s not like Buffy isn’t a wonderful girl… there’s no way I’m getting out of this with my honor intact, am I?”

Dawn snickered.

“Usually it’s Willow who babbles,” she said as she turned back to the kitchen.

“Actually, Willow’s completely babble-free so far today,” Xander said, sitting down on the couch with a sigh. He stopped, then looked at it in puzzlement.

“Wow. How old is this thing? Nevermind. Not important. Faith’s the one who’s all riled up today.”

Dawn cocked her head to the side curiously.

“Why?”

Xander shrugged.

“She’s been wired all morning. Something about having knocked out your father and she doesn’t know how to handle facing him and- to be honest, when she started, Will was still asleep and I was still pondering the weighty matter of whether I wanted Frosted Flakes or Lucky Charms, so I can’t say I really followed the whole thing.”

Dawn giggled, while Buffy looked perplexed.

“She seemed ok yesterday,” Buffy pointed out. “She sounded like she was curious to meet him.”

Xander shrugged.

“Time to think without distractions and get nervous?” he suggested. “Father-figure issues, law enforcement figure issues- dealer’s choice, really.”

“But Dad’s all nice and… Dad-like,” Buffy protested.

Gibbs wondered privately if this was what it felt like when the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes.

“There’s an easy fix for this, you know,” Dawn said. “We just take Dad to the house. Get it over with before Faith has time to get really wigged out. Assuming she isn’t already.”

“She wasn’t when I left, but who knows,” Xander shrugged. “Willow was heading out to pick up pizza, so anything could have happened.”

“You guys were going to eat without us?” Buffy demanded, sounding wounded.

“You girls just ate breakfast a couple hours ago!” Gibbs exclaimed.

Xander shook his head sympathetically.

“You’ll learn,” he said encouragingly. Turning to the girls he continued, “if we leave now, we’ll back before Will and Giles can possibly cajole her into the car to come here.”

Buffy nodded.

“I’ll text Giles to let him know,” she said. “Dawn, did you want to invite Graham?”

Dawn looked somewhat surprised.

“I figured today was just for family,” she said. “I talked to him last night, so it’s not like he doesn’t know where I am.”

Buffy shrugged.

“Your man, your call,” she said. “Or are you scared to introduce your boyfriend to Dad?”

Dawn rolled her eyes.

“They’ve already met,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but that was before Dad knew who you were,” Buffy grinned. “It’s different now!”

Gibbs saw Xander trying to catch his eye, and got the younger man’s silent message- herd the girls toward the vehicles before Buffy could wind Dawn up too much. 

“Ok, let’s go see your place,” he said.

As he’d hoped, that broke up the incipient sisterly standoff, as Dawn stood up straighter.

“You’re going to like it. At least, I hope you will,” she said excitedly. “I’ve been entirely responsible for the setup of this one. But you have to ignore the mess, because we’re not done unpacking, we had to speed up bringing the house online because of the whole Quantico thing.”

Gibbs smiled as Dawn chattered away. The house wasn’t the point, really- spending time with his girls was.


	24. Uncertain Ground

Buffy elected to drive over with Xander- Gibbs suspected she wanted to grill him about what their friend was so nervous about and whether she should be worried. He doesn’t blame her for it – it’s what he would do himself. But Dawn had happily climbed into his car, and kept up a running commentary on the drive to the Council’s house. 

Gibbs wasn’t sure what surprised him more, that she was completely unfazed by his driving, to the point that he almost double checked that it wasn’t Ziva in the passenger seat, or that the address Dawn had given him- trusting he’d know how to get there, since she had really no idea what was where in DC yet- was in Embassy Row. 

To pass the time- and to satisfy his own curiosity, he brought up a topic he’d been wondering about.

“So, tell me about Joyce Summers. We don’t really know too much about her, and I’ve been wondering what she was like.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could just catch the complex mix of emotions that flitted across his daughter’s face. 

“Mom,” she corrected softly. “I understand she’s not my biological mother, but she’s still my mother in ways that count.”

Gibbs wasn’t stupid enough to poke at that particular wound, especially not while it was still fresh. 

“Mom was… amazing in a lot of ways I don’t think Buffy and I really appreciated until she was gone,” Dawn continued slowly. “And before you ask, she didn’t know until just before the end that I wasn’t hers- and I don’t think she ever knew that Buffy wasn’t. Not that it would have mattered.”

That piqued Gibbs’ interest, but he felt it wasn’t the time to follow up just yet on the fact that Joyce had somehow become aware that Dawn wasn’t her biological daughter.

“What do you mean, you didn’t really appreciate until she was gone?” he asked.

Dawn chewed on her lip, but for a change she didn’t seem to be trying to decide how much to say so much as how to explain.

“I don’t know about Buffy, but I didn’t realize until later that Mom was the only stable parent for pretty much all the Scoobies from the time we moved to Sunnydale until the day she died,” she said slowly. “You did background on us, and I’m sure you heard me tell Agent McGee that Hank wasn’t exactly Father of the Year material.”

Gibbs nodded. That was still a score he wouldn’t mind settling. Even if the man found out they weren’t his, you don’t toss two kids you raised away like they’re nothing.

“So you know Mom was more or less a single mother post-divorce to begin with,” Dawn continued. “She moved to Sunnydale with me and Buffy in tow, and Buffy had already been kicked out of one school. Most people would probably think that was their parenting plate full, but then Buffy started bringing her friends home. Xander mentioned his dad was no picnic, but his mother wasn’t much better. The major difference between the Harrises was that she wasn’t a mean drunk. Xander didn’t even hear from them after Sunnydale until he went looking for them- I guess checking that their only child was still alive just wasn’t as important as finding the bottom of the bottle. He cut contact with them after that.”

Gibbs gripped the steering wheel harder than was strictly necessary, but he said nothing, letting Dawn say as much as she would. 

“The Rosenbergs were never around because they were always on book tours or conferences or doing research or something. I guess they cared in their own way, because Willow always had nice clothes and a reasonable allowance and plenty of healthy food in the house, but it was a really distant sort of way. Like if you reminded them they had a living breathing kid, they’d check on her, but otherwise they were too busy lecturing about theories of child development to deal with their daughter. Faith, her childhood was bad. Hitchhiking from Boston to California alone at sixteen is one of the nicest parts of her life story before Sunnydale. Anya’s parents were dead long before we met her. Tara’s mom died when she was little and her father thought she should have stayed home and kept house for him and her brothers instead of going to college and trying to make a life for herself. She felt otherwise, so that was kinda that...”

She didn’t need to keep going. Gibbs got the picture.

“And since their parents weren’t doing it, Joyce looked out for all of them,” he said.

Dawn nodded.

“Instead of keeping it just friends, she let Xander and Willow be family. And still had time to make hot chocolate and dole out sympathy and parental advice to any of my friends in need, too.” 

That insight about Xander and Willow gave Gibbs some insight into how the constellation around his daughters formed, but not enough. He still wasn’t sure how the others Dawn had mentioned fit in.

“Mom was…” 

Dawn trailed off for a minute, and when he glanced over, Gibbs was startled to see she’d teared up. He reached over and squeezed her hand and was rewarded with a watery smile.

“Mom was there. Really there. For all of us. Nothing was the same after she was gone. It was like someone just reached in and ripped our collective heart out, and it was worse because it was so unexpected. She was supposed to be getting better.” 

The pain in her voice still sounded fresh, for all it had been ten years ago.

“It was sudden?” Gibbs asked, confused. The file he’d seen had suggested she’d died after an illness. COD has been listed as complications from brain surgery.

Dawn looked off into the distance. 

“Tara said it’s always sudden,” she said quietly.

“I guess that’s because it always is,” Gibbs replied, thinking back to his mother’s death. “Even when you know it’s coming.”

Dawn blinked and tried to smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to turn all depressing on you,” she said ruefully. “Getting back to her general awesomeness, Mom would have ripped anyone who hurt any of us limb from limb.”

Gibbs smiled. Any kid who had good parents thought that. 

Dawn’s eyes narrowed.

“No, really,” she insisted. “She hit Sp- a vampire in the head with a fire axe when he was trying to kill Buffy. Mom was no joke if someone was threatening us. Any of us.”

There was a long pause, one of the kind Gibbs was starting to interpret as Dawn wanting to say something more, but holding back. He wasn’t sure why she was still holding back, only that she was.

“Anyway, Mom was amazing. I don’t know how we ended up with her, but I can’t believe she was some sort of kidnapper. She’d never hurt a kid. Hank, maybe, but Mom? Never.”

The absolute certainty in Dawn’s voice was the best character reference Joyce Summers could have. 

As they reached the house, to his surprise, Gibbs realized Buffy’s car was somehow in front of them. 

Dawn snickered at the look on his face.

“Guess we can stop wondering where Buffy got her driving style from,” she said. “But it’s good they got here first- I didn’t even think about the gate. It’s setup for the driver to code in, not a passenger.”

“You don’t let cars in without a code, but people can walk right through that pedestrian gate,” Gibbs pointed out, keeping his tone neutral. 

“People aren’t the same kind of threat as cars,” Dawn replied. “You can pack all sorts of fun stuff into cars. And the enemies we deal with generally aren’t into suicide bombing, at least not in a personal way. Besides, that pedestrian gate isn’t as unsecured as it looks.”

Gibbs would have argued, but the expression on his daughter’s face suggested she knew perfectly well what she was talking about. Given what she’d said earlier about being in charge of this facility, he imagined she did, so he let it drop.

As they parked, he could see the woman he had seen briefly at the hotel yesterday lounging on the porch – Faith Lehane. 

Dawn’s sharp intake of breath warned him something was amiss.

“Everything ok?” he asked her.

“Faith’s tense,” Dawn replied. “I mean, I know Xander said she was worked up, but I figured she’d have just gone into the training room and hit things or had a talk with Giles while Xander and Willow were out.”

Gibbs forced himself to relax at the mention of Rupert Giles. Instead, he cocked his head to the side, evaluating the girl on the porch. He didn’t see it, but Dawn knew the other woman much better than he did. He was usually pretty good at reading people, but somehow the usual rules didn’t apply to his daughter and her family.

“She doesn’t need to be nervous,” Gibbs assured her. 

Dawn snorted.

“Easy for you to say,” she muttered.

As they climbed out of the car, Buffy was already walking up the path to the front steps.

“Hey, Faith,” she said neutrally. 

The response wasn’t monosyllabic so much as a grunt.

“Faith, this is my dad. Dad, Faith.”

“Hi,” Gibbs said, deciding that given how their last encounter had gone warm would be a lost cause and settling instead for pleasant neutral.

He got a curt nod. Dawn’s eyebrows flew up, but Gibbs noted the look on Buffy’s face was one of understanding.

“Faith’s part of the Buffy and Dawn package, so get used to her being around,” Buffy continued, electing not to deal with whatever was riling her friend for the moment.

“She’s usually more talkative,” Dawn added pointedly.

“Leave it, Dawnie,” Buffy murmured.

Dawn looked from Faith to Buffy, then linked her arm through her father’s and steered him inside, leaving Faith to Buffy and Xander.

The interior of the house was nothing like what Gibbs had expected. He’d expected functional. Impersonal. Vaguely institutional, even. What he saw was a normal home- one that was lived in, even if there were still a few boxes sitting in the front hall. And definitely nowhere near as posh as the address would suggest.

Rupert Giles came out of the living room to greet them.

“Agent Gibbs,” he said with a polite nod. Gibbs decided that under the circumstances, this was probably as good as it got. “Dawn, where are the others?”

“Out talking Faith out of whatever funk she’s in,” Dawn said, sounding annoyed.

Gibbs glance went past them to the mantelpiece in the living room. For all Dawn had repeatedly warned him that the house residents were ‘not finished unpacking yet’, it was already covered in pictures- most framed, a few not. One or both of his daughters figured in nearly every one.

There was one of Dawn and Buffy as teenagers. A cheerful Buffy with a younger Willow and Harris- who still had both eyes. Faith sticking her tongue out as she and Buffy mugged for the camera. A group shot, featuring not only his daughters and those of their associates he’d already met, but several other people. He felt certain that Anya and Tara were in the group, but couldn’t be sure which they were. Dawn in a college graduation gown, with a beaming Buffy on one side and Rupert Giles looking fit to burst with pride on the other. 

He dragged himself back to the conversation only to discover Giles sending Dawn upstairs.

“I assume you will wish to give your father a house tour, and knowing you girls, some rooms are doubtless not in the best state.”

Dawn rolled her eyes.

“Because that will matter so much to Faith, who’s the only one who has yet to get the hang of ‘cleaning your own room’.”

At Giles’ speaking look, she sighed and headed up the stairs, muttering something under her breath. Gibbs got the distinct impression that were it not for his presence, she’d have responded with a sarcastic ‘yes, Dad’.

“No killing each other while there’s no witnesses, you two,” she called back as Giles removed his glasses and rubbed at them with a handkerchief.

\---

Out on the front porch, Buffy glanced sympathetically at her fellow Slayer.

“Issues not as dealt with as you thought?” she asked wryly.

Faith nodded glumly.

“Yeah, it was cool in the abstract, but less so in the ‘Buffy’s father the federal agent is on his way over’ reality. I mean, this is our space, you know? I’m supposed to be able to relax here.”

Buffy sighed and sat down on the step next to Faith.

“You listened to me talk through my issues, time for me to pay it back?”

Faith shook her head. 

It wasn’t just Buffy’s dad- it was also that once again, it was Buffy getting some form of fairy tale happy in her life, even if they all knew it wasn’t likely to last. Faith was mature enough not to let that kind of petty jealousy wreck things between them now. At least, she hoped she was. The Summers sisters and the Scoobies were all she had in the way of family, and if being part of that meant occasionally tagging along looking through the windows at things she couldn’t have, she could deal.

“You know I’m not much for talk therapy, B. I’ll work through it, hopefully without raining on your parade.”

Xander snickered.

“She gets one long-lost relative – who wasn’t lost so much as stolen – and it qualifies as parade?”

Faith grinned, grateful for the outside perspective without a side of guilt.

“Yeah, I guess parade would be overkill.” She frowned. “Little D’s hacked off at me, isn’t she?”

Buffy shrugged. 

“She’ll get over it,” she replied. “It’s so easy to forget most of the time there’s an age gap between her and us, but every once in a while it matters. Plus, this entire situation is less complicated for her.”

Faith nodded. That part she got.

“Yeah, not having to worry about the Slayer thing has to make it easier. And she’s used to being treated like she’s breakable. Hate to say it, B, but I’m pretty sure that’s one hell of a protective pops you got in there.”

“Tell me about it,” Buffy groaned. “I keep thinking that this can’t go well. At some point he’s going to find out what Slayer really means and flip out. Right now it’s just a word. But Dawn can skip all that, seeing as in her case, overprotective from everyone around her is normal. Total Daddy’s girl in the making, now that we have a dad who actually cares. Anyway, no pressure on you. We can let Dawn drag Dad around on the grand tour while you find your calm, and then we can all hang out. Hopefully without Giles being injured.”

Xander snorted.

“Right…” he said dryly. “Because your dad, who seems to deal with threats to his family about the same way you do, will totally not be pissed at the only representative of the old Council he’s ever likely to come face to face with and will surely be cool and have a beer with your Watcher, no punches thrown.”

Buffy blinked and glanced at the door in alarm, as if hoping she’d suddenly develop X-ray vision to check on the two men inside.  
Faith snickered.

“I can’t promise I’m five by five, but I’m cool enough to go in and be civil and make sure the G-man doesn’t pick up yet another head injury.”

\---

Giles put his glasses back on and looked over at Gibbs.

To Gibbs’ surprise, he found the Englishman met his stare head-on, reminding him of the impression he’d briefly gotten in Vance’s office that this man was a bit more than just a mild-mannered museum curator. He could be dangerous- if he chose to. 

“I thought it was best to clear the air while the children are not in the room,” Giles said bluntly. “I’m sure you have things to say, and fighting in front of the girls would only upset them.”

Gibbs didn’t blink, so much as reassess the situation. He’d been all set to detest the man, but then the bastard had to go and be all reasonable.

“Your Council stole my daughters,” he pointed out, trying to keep the anger out of his tone. He wasn’t going to get over that, or even try.   
Time they could never get back had been taken from them, not to mention the damage to his girls that was measured in scars both physical and mental.

He wasn’t sure exactly what the tell was, but something about the way Giles answered told Gibbs’ gut that Giles was well aware of the full story of Dawn.

“So it would seem. I can only point out that at the time of the kidnapping, I was hardly in a leadership position in the Council.”

“You are now,” Gibbs shot back.

“True. But what I told your director is also true: I’ve been looking after your daughters for quite a few years now. Their lives have been far from easy. It is no simple thing for me to step back and watch them welcome a complete unknown into their lives, who may yet prove to be one more heartache in a long line of them.”

Gibbs snorted.

“My older daughter’s been brainwashed into fighting vampires, something I imagine is pretty hazardous to one’s health,” he pointed out, “and the younger one has been around danger long enough to be so blasé about getting abducted that one of my agents was convinced she was someone’s operative. Is this the part where you warn me what happens if _I_ hurt them?” 

“Agent Gibbs,” Giles replied. “I’m aware of your career in the Marine Corps – and after.”

That little sting at the end gave Gibbs some pause – very few people had access to his full file, and he knew damn well that both Jen and Leon had made a few things disappear. Rupert Giles seemed to know all about him, while Gibbs didn’t fully understand who or what he was dealing with – and suddenly he recalled Ducky’s warning.

“I would be rather surprised if you weren’t at least considering applying part of your skill set to me,” Giles continued. “As self-serving as it may sound, I would recommend you do not, as your younger daughter in particular finds loss very difficult to deal with. Furthermore, neither of your daughters reacts well to anyone hurting those they consider family. But yes, I absolutely am warning you about what happens if you hurt these children- not just the two you consider yours.” 

The eyes that Rupert Giles turned on him were as hard as any he’d ever seen. 

“They have been through more than you can possibly imagine together. They give of themselves time and again, knowing full well that they will get very little in return. The world will never acknowledge their sacrifices. If they do their job, the world will never even be aware that anything was sacrificed. I have watched them over the years grow into people it is a privilege to know, and I protect them in any way that I can. Sadly, there is often so little I can do.”

Gibbs was forced to note that Giles expression suggested this did genuinely pain him.

“I can only hope this is not one of those times when they are in need of protection,” Giles continued. “In this family, we usually say a vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend. However, I’ve found that sometimes leaving a bit to the imagination is wiser. Suffice it to say that if you treat any of these young people as poorly as Hank Summers treated his supposed daughters, they will never find your body, for the simple reason that there will be no body to find.”

Gibbs digested both the words and the tone they’d been delivered in- one that wasn’t trying to sound threatening or frightening, merely a casual statement of how things were- then decided that if the tables were turned and he was a normal father, being suddenly asked to allow another man into his children’s life in a parental role, he’d probably say something similar. Probably less understated, though. More explicit about the potential for life-ending violence. 

“Fair enough,” he said. 

That was when the door burst open almost as forcefully as if it had been kicked in, revealing Buffy and Faith both wide eyed and ready for anything.

“Hi,” Buffy announced, failing utterly at sounding casual.

Faith couldn’t seem to settle on how to explain their sudden entrance, eying them both as if they were unexploded ordnance as she edged past them to settle onto a couch to watch the show.

Xander opted to point out that there was an elephant in the room.

“Hey, check it out – neither of them took a swing!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to resplendeo, who noticed I had overlooked posting chapter 23 here when I posted it to TtH. I _intended_ to rectify that in a timely manner and post the new chapter here first to make up for it. The 'timely' part didn't quite work. I did not count on this chapter being so awkward to finish. (It's Tony's fault. He's been so uncooperative he had to be moved to the next chapter.)


	25. History Lessons

Tony glared at the empty desk.

It did no good. No matter how often he looked over, a cranky, caffeinated ex-Marine with a penchant for slapping heads didn’t materialize. He couldn’t remember the last time Gibbs had voluntarily taken a day off. Not while he was healthy, at least. Very occasionally if he was injured. But otherwise, it usually took an order from the director.

The current lack of Gibbs was downright unnatural.

He made himself focus on his screen for at least ten minutes, despite his conviction that all was not right with the world. Ok, maybe it was really only three. He looked back over.

The desk was still empty.

“What, Tony?” McGee finally asked in exasperation.

He’d been watching his teammate shoot glances at their boss’s empty desk all morning. It was mid-afternoon now, and it was getting on his nerves.

“What do you mean, ‘what’, Probie?” Tony replied, trying for smooth. “Years working as an investigator at a federal agency, and you can’t formulate a better question than ‘what’?”

“You’ve been looking over at his desk every few minutes like you expect something to jump out of it,” McGee pointed out. “And you’ve been doing it all day.”

“Gibbs isn’t here,” Tony said tensely.

“Yes, Tony, Gibbs is not here,” Ziva said patiently. “That is what ‘taking the day off’ means.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

The demand came from both McGee and Ziva at once, one sounding like his patience was fraying, the other outright exasperated.

“Because I don’t like it when Gibbs isn’t Gibbs!” Tony snapped. “He’s not acting normal. If the situation were reversed, if it were any one of us who had a long dead family member suddenly pop up alive, Gibbs’ gut would be bothering him. He would be digging into the newly undead, finding out who they really were, what was really going on. And you know why he’d be doing that?”

“His gut?” McGee suggested resignedly. The team had enough experience of DiNozzo in a mood to know it was best to just ride it out.

“No, McGee. He’d be doing it because Gibbs looks out for his team. And we are damn well going to do the same for him.”

Ziva had not relaxed her stance at all. If anything, her expression had only grown stonier.

“By all means, Tony, look out for Gibbs as you see fit,” she snapped. “But do not expect the rest of us to share your assessment.”

“And don’t go digging into the ‘newly undead’ as you put it while you do, DiNozzo,” came a stern voice.

“Director Vance,” Tony said politely, as the director rounded the corner from the direction of the break room.

“Lest we forget, we have been given a direct order from the President. Gibbs’ daughters and their friends are off-limits.”

Vance glared at all of them, particularly DiNozzo and McGee.

“If I have to buy new servers, McGee, it’s coming out of your paycheck,” Vance added as he headed for the stairs.

“No new servers,” McGee affirmed. “Got it, director.”

Tony’s look of disgruntlement hadn’t entirely abated, but he did look less irritated. His teammates exchanged wary glances at his improved mood, aware that this couldn’t be going anywhere good.

“You heard the man,” he told them cheerfully. “Gibbs’ daughters and their friends are off-limits.”

At their blank looks he sighed.

“This is one of those nudge-nudge, wink-wink things Gibbs and the director do all the time.”

At their continued lack of understanding, he threw up his hands in exasperation.

“Come on, people! Think! The friends are off limits. No one said anything about the mother. Or any other relatives, for that matter.”

“Way ahead of you, Tony,” came Abby’s cheerful tones. “I was already looking into Joyce Summers for Gibbs. And Ducky’s been helping me on a little side project.”

Tony glanced from McGee, who looked as if this was news to him, to Ziva, who was suddenly far too unruffled and utterly absorbed in her paperwork.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Ziva,” he accused.

“You are a big boy, you can hold your own,” she replied calmly. “Besides, there was little to tell.”

“Well, there’s something to tell now,” Abby said smugly. “Are you guys coming down or what?”

\---

Neither Gibbs nor Giles even tried to pretend that Xander’s statement of surprise wasn’t an accurate read on the situation. Gibbs had considered it for a split second, but the look Buffy was giving him killed that idea.

“Mr. Giles and I were just…” he trailed off, not sure how to fill in that blank without flat out admitting that they’d mutually agreed that killing the other one was an acceptable consequence for hurting his daughters or their friends. He was pretty sure that wasn’t something to tell the ‘kids’.

He caught a snicker from direction of the couch as Buffy looked from one man to the other.

“You know, I’m not even sure which one of you I should threaten, so I’m just going to say ‘ribcage hats’ and leave it at that,” Buffy said, marching past them into the living room.

Gibbs blinked, but at Giles’ slight shake of the head, he closed his mouth on the question.

“Will should be here with the pizza any second,” Xander added. “So make yourself comfortable, and if you have a preferred form of caffeine, tell Dawn. She’s the connoisseur of all things caffeine. I already started the coffeemaker with one of her approved blends.”

At Faith’s raised eyebrow, Xander shrugged.

“I’m assuming the Dawnmeister gets it from him,” he explained.

“Are you guys talking about me?”

Dawn came thundering down the stairs.

“House tour available on request, now that I made sure some people’s bedroom doors are shut to hide the absolute disaster area,” she said, with a pointed look in Faith’s direction.

“I’m wounded, D,” Faith replied, miming being hit in the chest. “I haven’t even been here long enough to properly settle in yet.”

“How about the house tour waits until later?” suggested a new voice from the door.

Gibbs looked up to find Willow Rosenberg had arrived, with pizza. Lots of pizza.

“You buying for a platoon?” he asked, eying the number of boxes. There was at least one box for every person in the room – which, as far as he knew, was every person in the house.

Willow laughed.

“You’ll get used to feeding Slayers,” she giggled. “There’s no such thing as too much food.”

Dawn disappeared into the kitchen, returning with paper plates and plastic cups.

“Did you get-“

Her face brightened as Willow wordlessly handed over the box on top of the stack.

“You’re the best, Willow!” she chirped.

“You really are, Red,” Faith agreed from the couch, opening her own carnivore special while eying Dawn’s box like it might explode.

“Giles, aren’t you staying?” Buffy asked, seeing her Watcher heading for the front door.

“No, I rather thought your father would appreciate having some time with you and your friends without a chaperone. Given that things should be quiet, I’ve arranged other company for the evening. I’ll still be reachable in case of emergencies, of course.”

Buffy frowned and followed him into the entrance, where the two of them appeared to have a short but intense conversation. Gibbs made it a point to not listen in, tuning into the chatter of Dawn and the other three young adults instead, but keeping an eye on his daughter. The conversation in the hall ended with Giles giving Buffy a look that Gibbs knew he’d given to Tony and McGee a time or two –basically ‘stop whining and put on your big kid pants’.

Buffy sighed, and gave Giles a hug before watching him leave. Gibbs could see her put on her happy face before she walked back into the living room, where she plopped onto the couch next to him and snagged the nearest box of pizza.

“So, did I miss anything?”

\---

When they reached Abby’s lab, they found Ducky already present, sitting comfortably in Abby’s office chair.

“That took longer than I’d expected,” he said pleasantly.

“That’s because someone was shooting their mouth off in front of the director,” Abby said, with a pointed look in Tony’s direction. “Which means if we get cut off mid-investigation, it’s totally his fault.”

“Is not!” Tony protested.

“Is so,” McGee muttered.

“Ok,” Abby began. “First, just to be clear, Gibbs daughters are his. DNA doesn’t lie, and I’ve got solid matches for them to Gibbs, his wife, and each other. Full sisters, parents Leroy Jethro and Shannon Fielding Gibbs.”

“Duly noted,” Tony said, catching the pointed looks everyone was giving him.

“Which left us with the question of just who exactly Joyce Summers was, and how she ended up with two girls completely unrelated to her,” Abby continued.

At the looks on Tony and McGee’s faces, she sighed.

“What, you didn’t think I was just going to drop that, did you?”

“Of course not!” Tony beamed. “So what do you got, Abbs?”

She grinned.

“Ok, so first I ran DNA. From the remaining hair from Dawn’s locket, I come up with no quantifiable relationship. About what you’d expect if you picked two random people off the street and tested them.”

She paused.

“I told Gibbs that I had a lead on Joyce Summers. Facial isometrics led me to another cold case- Carol Winters, missing presumed dead. She disappeared from her hometown in Ohio just a few weeks before Kelly and Shannon Gibbs were in the car accident that killed Shannon and until recently was assumed to have killed Kelly also.”

“Ok, so we know who she was,” Tony began.

“Don’t jump the gun, Tony,” Abby said smugly. “So I went back and got the records from the cold case. Everything the police had – which wasn’t much, because Carol Winters basically disappeared without a trace. Ran out in the middle of making dinner to pick up milk and never came home. They found her car in the supermarket lot.”

“That’s all they found?” McGee asked in disbelief. “That’s impossible. Did they investigate at all?”

“Well, yeah,” Abby agreed. “Today we would be rightfully annoyed if a local PD handed us a file like this, because there should be CCTV footage, crime scene photos, DNA evidence, social media appeals, the works. But not in Bidwell, Ohio in 1991. It’s a small town. They did a canvass, and when that turned up a whole lot of nothing, they tried using dogs. But the dogs didn’t pick up anything outside of the car. Local witnesses didn’t recall seeing anything out of the ordinary except a single car with out of state tags that passed through town that day.”

“Let me guess, no one got the tag,” Tony predicted in a resigned tone.

It happened all the time. Local witnesses would remember a car they didn’t know, because in a small town you knew which vehicles were local and which weren’t. But no one expected it to turn out to be anything, so no one wrote down the license plate number.

“You got it,” Abby said.

“Then why are you smiling, Abigail?” Ducky asked.

“Maybe because a car matching the description of the mystery vehicle in Bidwell was also spotted on base the day Kelly and Shannon Gibbs were in that car crash,” Abby said smugly.

“Abbs, how unusual is that?” Tony asked skeptically. “Even in the early 90s, there were over a hundred million passenger vehicles in the country. Having your own car is as much a part of the American way as truth, justice, and apple pie.”

“Well, yeah, Tony, it would be one thing if we were talking about a common model,” Abby agreed. “But a silver Sterling 827 SLi?”

At their blank looks, she sighed.

“Sterling was a short lived brand, an attempt by Austin Rover to return to the American market in the late 80s. They threw in the towel in August of ‘91. The 827 SLi was their top of the range model, and only available for three model years. There were less than 12,000 Sterlings sold total in those three years, mostly in major metropolitan areas. And yet this rare car pops up in both places. Tell me that’s a coincidence!”

“You’re right, Abby, it is unlikely that this was a coincidence,” Ziva agreed. “But without a driver to go with the car, we’re still grasping at straws. There’s nothing else linking Carol Winters’ disappearance to Kelly Gibbs’ carefully planned abduction.”

“Nothing yet,” Abby corrected firmly. “I’m waiting on DNA samples from Carol Winters’ surviving relatives – she has a sister and a cousin still living in Bidwell. I want to put it beyond reasonable doubt that Joyce Summers was originally Carol Winters.”

“No parents?” McGee asked.

Abby shook her head.

“I talked to the local police chief. It’s pretty much a two man department. He knew the family. Said her mother went downhill fast after Carol disappeared, and her father only outlived his wife by about a year. She had a brother, but he was killed in a car accident 6 months after the father died.”

“Good lord,” Ducky said quietly. “A veritable chain reaction of misfortune.”

“I know,” Abby replied grimly. “Which is why I really want to find out who targeted Carol Winters and Kelly Gibbs. Whoever they were, it seems like they didn’t care how much destruction they left in their wake, just as long as they got what they were after.”

\---

Buffy looked around the living room. She was almost afraid of what she needed to do next. She could only hope her father would take it well- or as well as possible. After all, it was never little things with them.

The Scoobies were scattered around the room, Dawn and Willow were on the couch, Faith sitting in front of them on the floor. Xander had elected to sit in the chair in front of the fireplace, while her dad had taken the other chair. She regretted that Giles wasn’t here to help with the explanation, but he’d argued that her dad likely wouldn’t welcome his presence for this.

Everyone looked pretty sated, and most of the pizza boxes were empty, with the glaring exception of Dawn’s bizarre combo of choice, which was only missing three slices. Their dad had gamely tried a piece. He’d tried to be subtle about it, but since everyone else had experience with Dawn’s idiosyncratic tastes, he’d ended up with an audience. He managed to keep his reaction bland, but he did give Dawn a slightly quizzical look as he set the anchovy, pepperoni, and pineapple slice carefully to one side.

Buffy cleared her throat.

“So, um, I’m guessing you have questions about Dawn,” she began, trying not to let her nervousness bleed into her tone. Glancing at her sister out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dawn fidgeting. Willow put a reassuring arm around her.

Gibbs took in the state of both his daughters in a single glance, and knew that this was one of the things he needed to get right, or there would be permanent damage to any relationship he might continue to have with them- assuming there was one at all.

“Lots, actually, since you girls didn’t grow up here like you should have. I’ve missed a lot about both of you. But I’m guessing you mean the really big question,” he said lightly. “I’m not in any doubt she’s my daughter. Just curious about when and how exactly that happened.”

Buffy nodded.

“You’re our father, so you should know the truth. We talked it over, and Dawn thinks-“

“It’s important,” Dawn said softly, unable to look up from the complete lack of pattern on the couch.

“It’s mostly important that it not be repeated,” Buffy said. “It’s safer that way- for Dawn, and for you. There are only two people outside this room who know the full story of Dawn.”

“Giles is one,” Gibbs guessed.

Buffy nodded.

“Spike is the other. Spike has known since the beginning, and he’s more than proved he can be trusted with that knowledge.”

“Buff? Seeing as your dad hasn’t met or even heard much about Spike yet, you can probably leave off with the pre-emptive defense,” Xander spoke up.

Gibbs made a mental note that he was not going to like Spike. Although if he had looked out for Dawn when she was younger, there was at least one point in his favor.

“Right,” Buffy said, clearly not as composed as she wanted to be. “So, if you were anyone else, there’s no way we would be telling you this so soon, or maybe even at all. But you’re family, so...”

Gibbs wondered how much longer Buffy would dance around whatever it was she was so nervous about saying, but to his surprise – and everyone else’s, from the looks of it – Dawn decided to cut the crap.

“I was never born,” she blurted. “I was created to hide something from a hellgod. I came into being as a fourteen year old, and the monks who made me altered the memories of everyone around me so that they thought I’d always been there. They needed something the Slayer would lay down her life for if that was what it took to protect me. It was a great plan except for the minor detail that no one knew Hank and Mom weren’t our biological parents, so your memory wasn’t rewritten like everyone else’s. Oh, and all the associated shittiness that comes from a fourteen year old finding out she’s not really real and her entire existence up until about four months ago was one big lie.”

“You’re real,” Buffy and Gibbs said in the same breath, as Willow hugged a now pale Dawn, who looked relieved to have gotten the worst over.

“You’re as real as I am, Dawn,” Gibbs assured her. “Your mother always wanted another child, so she’d probably kiss those monks- right before she kicked their butts for putting you through that.”

Dawn gave him a slight smile.

Buffy snorted.

“If any of them made it to heaven, she was probably waiting for them at the gate,” she muttered. “Cause I don’t think she’s very happy about how things were handled.”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. That was a statement that begged the question, but he wasn’t sure now was the time.

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But Dawn’s here now, and that’s what matters.”

He just caught Willow’s whispered, ‘see? I told you it would be all right’ to Dawn as he asked his most important question.

“When you say your memory was rewritten-“

“Completely altered to slot Dawn in,” Buffy said, as the others nodded. “I remember Mom and Hank bringing her home from the hospital. Which I guess is actually a rewrite of a rewrite if anyone’s keeping track. After that, anytime she should reasonably have been there, she was. The events of our lives that had already happened got altered to incorporate her. But she wasn’t really there until I was in college.”

Gibbs frowned as he considered that.

“So what you told me earlier about when you were thirteen-“

Dawn looked unhappy.

“Never really happened, even though that’s what I remember and what Xander and Spike remember, and Giles would tell you if you asked him.”

“What did you tell him?” Xander asked, sounding curious.

“An Anya story,” Dawn said. “That time right before the Gentlemen stole everyone’s voices.”

“You had to pick that story?” Xander demanded in horrified chagrin as Willow giggled and Faith grinned, both evidently aware of the incident.

Gibbs looked around at the rest of the room.

“And this memory alteration happened to all of you?”

Xander nodded, still looking slightly embarassed.

“Example time! I remember the first day I met Buffy. She’d just started Sunnydale High. I made a complete ass of myself the first time we talked, but somehow she ended up eating lunch with our gang anyway. One of the first things I learned about her at lunch was that she had a little sister named Dawn who was the most adorable little pain in the butt in the world.”

He ducked the piece of pineapple Dawn threw at him, which Faith snagged mid-air and popped straight into her mouth.

“That didn’t really happen,” Xander continued as if nothing had happened. “At least, not the way I remember it. The day I met Buff for the first time, she definitely did have lunch with us. But Dawn didn’t exist yet, so Buffy couldn’t have told me about her. The Dawn part got added in later. Stuff like that.”

“I’m guessing if the monks had known the full story about Buffy,” Willow said thoughtfully, “then your memory would have been altered, too. But they didn’t know, so the spell wasn’t cast widely enough. We’re still not sure what they based it on.”

“You’re saying if these monks had known Buffy was my daughter, I’d have the memories I should have to make me think Dawn had been born to me and Shannon in 1986?”

Willow nodded.

“You would remember Dawn being born, her childhood, and I’m guessing you would remember her being in the car with Buffy and her mother when Buffy was supposedly killed. You would have been informed that both your daughters died. You’d probably also have a birth certificate for her, although we know now that if you ever chased it down with the hospital, no one would have any idea what you were talking about. The spell only concerned itself with the people closest to Buffy and Dawn, who would deal with them regularly. When Joyce died, people who came to the funeral didn’t know who Dawn was unless they’d been living in Sunnydale or spoken to her recently. We only realized the paperwork part the other day when Dawn told us about her birth certificate not being genuine.”

Gibbs turned to Buffy, who was watching his reaction nervously.

“I don’t get why you would tell a fourteen year old all this. Yeah, it’s important, but could it not have waited until she was older, more mature so she might be ready to handle it?”

The way his daughter’s face fell spoke volumes.

“She didn’t,” Dawn broke in defensively. “Tell me, I mean. I found out when I snuck out of the house and read Giles’ Watcher’s Journal. It’s just lucky Spike was with me when I did.”

Buffy’s face was so sad it nearly broke him to see it.

“I never meant to tell her,” she admitted quietly. “When I was trying to find out where she came from, I met one of the monks who helped create her. He was dying, but before he did, he told me that she was human, and innocent. Once I knew that, I couldn’t tell her. I told Giles and the Scoobies, but not Dawn. I had to keep her safe, or as safe as she could be when she was my sister, but I wanted her to have a chance at happy, too. We kept it from her for months.”  
She paused, frowning.

“Maybe in retrospect that was wrong,” Buffy continued, “but I thought it was better for her if she didn’t know. If she hadn’t broken into the Magic Shop to read Giles’ journal, she might never have known. And that’s why no matter what else he may have done before or since, I can’t hate Spike. He kept Dawn safe, the night she found out, and for quite a few nights after that when I couldn’t be there.”

Dawn snorted.

“Yeah, the night I found out was… bad.”

“How bad?” Gibbs asked, his mouth dry. He knew all too well how badly teenagers could react over far more trivial things.

“Slicing myself open to see if I was real bad,” Dawn replied. “I walked out of the kitchen with a butcher knife and a slashed wrist. It put a serious damper on Buffy’s birthday party.”

“No, it didn’t. It just sort of… ended the party early,” Buffy replied, not sure if she was saying it more for Dawn or for their dad. “Besides, you have to admit, as birthdays go, that one was fairly low-key. No demons, no potential world-endiness.”

“Oh, yeah, be careful on Buffy’s birthday,” Faith told Gibbs quietly while Dawn and Buffy continued their own conversation. “It’s a thing. Something weird always happens.”

“Other than the part where if Glory found me, hello apocalypse,” Dawn pointed out.

“Well, yeah, but she didn’t know on my birthday,” Buffy shot back.

“And that, children, is a story for another night,” Xander interrupted. “Because if we start telling tales of the apocalypses now, we will never get to dessert, and that would be incredibly disappointing, because I found a nice little bakery that is all about cupcakes.”

At Xander’s puppydog eyes, Faith laughed.

“Way to lighten the moment, Xan Man.”

“I aim to please,” Xander said, jumping up and taking a bow as he headed for the kitchen to get the cupcake box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some readers have been wondering if I'd abandoned this story - the answer is no. But I've been blocked on it for what feels like forever. Still not happy with the chapter title and feel like it's a little choppy, but I feel like if I don't just post it and move on, I will spin my wheels indefinitely. On the bright side, I think I've cleaned up the issues I was having with the outline of the remaining chapters, so hopefully things will flow more smoothly from here out.


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